As i mentioned before you are what you eat and most if not all of you have no idea how excess calories can affect you. I watched a documentary on tv which was hosted by Dr Michael Mosley.
He looked into new research going on at the moment into the effects of calories. Fasting actually helps your body in a lot of ways. Research proves that if you don’t give your body a rest from eating you will die younger or suffer from up to 7 cancers.
Researchers found that high calorie intake makes your body’s cells run in hyper active mode which means there is no cell repair done so damaged cells can run rampant creating cancers including postrate (which i got) and breast cancers.
The thing that controls these cell production or repair is a growth hormone called Factor IGF-1. The Host was tested against a guy (same age as the host) who was on a very low calorie diet. They tested the youngness of the brain by standing on your weakest leg with hands out and eyes shut. The host lasted 3 seconds which he was told is real bad and the other guy was still standing after 30 seconds. They say the average 20 year old can do this for 20 seconds.
They had blood tests for colesterol, gluecose and the IGF-1 factor. The host was very high on all 3 and was told he was in the dangerous catagory, could have heart attack, stroke or end up with cancer at any time. The other guy’s levels were very low so his risk of dying from the above were non existant.
As far as calories go the host was eating 2400 calories per day where the other guy ate 1900 calories a day.
Now back to the fasting issue. Researchers said one way to repair cells and lower factor IGH-1 levels was by fasting so the host did a 3 day 4 night fast only eating a cup of soup a day (60 calories) and water. I have done a 4 day fast in the past and with nothing to eat, only drinking distilled water and it is not easy and i don’t think most of you can do that, his factor IGH-1 levels halved to very good levels but did not last when he went back to his normal eating habits. He looked at other fasting programs and he found one which was a lot easier to do which was 5 days of normal food and 2 days of only having breakfast with below 600 calories. This is the one we are doing.
You will find that being on a low carb diet will drop colesterol and factor IGH-1 but you still need the fasting days for your body to repair itself. Before you start low carb get a blood test done for the above and get another done a few months after doing low carb and fasting.
Wendy had a blood test a few months ago and her bad colesterol levels were in the 0.1 range and that was only doing low carb, she was always borderline high before. I have not had a blood test apart from PSA tests so it will be interesting to see these numbers when I get my next test. Make sure you ask you doctor to get the tests done, if they are not on the bloods sheet they won’t test for them.
The host went to a research facility in the usa. They had mice in a maze which had food at the end of one arm of the maze, every day they tested the mice’s memory by watching how long it took to get to the food. One mouse was fed a high calorie diet and the other fed low calorie. As the mice aged the one on a high calorie diet started losing it’s memory but the other went straight to the food. The mouse on high calorie died of old age and the low calorie one lasted another 4 months which is equivalant to 30 human years.
The host went to another research place and they looked at the effects of fasting on the body. Again with mice they had one group on high calories and another group on low calories with this group having a fasting day. They looked at the cells in the brain of both groups and the high calorie group all had deteriation of the brain cells and signs of parkinsons disease. The other group all showed a lot of new cell growth with no signs of aging.
The scientists figured that survival revolved around hunting for food and a good memory as to were to find food. So the brain renews cells when the body is subject some form of starvation.
You all by now will be asking the million dollar question, what is a safe IGF-1 reading. Looking at the results on this program they measure IGH-1 in “ng/ml” and a good level is around 100 ng/ml. A high reading would be around the 200 ng/ml level.
If you have a different reading to the above then check if they use ng/ml in there testing, the type of test used can vary depending on the country your in. Uncle google can convert results depending on the test done.