How a 7days water fast causes major weight loss
A ground-breaking study has shown the impact of a seven-day water fast on the human body.
Unsurprisingly, the study—which was published on Friday in the journal Nature Metabolism—found that participants lost a significant amount of weight while going without eating.
But the body had undergone other notable alterations as well, not all of which were bad.
Researchers found that the fast caused whole-body protein level alterations in participants, which improved the function of various organs, including the brain’s supporting structure for neurons.
“We can now observe the molecular changes that occur throughout the body during a fast for the first time,” said Claudia Langenberg, the director of Queen Mary’s Precision Health University Research Institute and one of the study’s authors, in a statement.
“Our findings show that fasting has health benefits beyond weight loss, but these benefits were not as evident after three days of complete caloric restriction as previously believed,” the speaker continued.
The Norwegian School of Sports Sciences and Queen Mary University of London’s Precision Healthcare University Research Institute conducted a week-long water fast analysis on 12 volunteers. Every day, they were checked for changes in their protein levels to see how their bodies responded to calorie restriction.
It has long been known that during a fast, the body uses its own fat stores as fuel rather than the calories it used to burn. This is what happened in the most recent study.
The subjects’ bodies used fat reserves as energy throughout the first 72 hours of the trial, resulting in an average loss of 12.5 pounds in lean mass and fat. After the first three days of eating after the fast, the lost lean mass was regained, but the fat mass was not.
“When done safely, fasting is an effective weight loss intervention,” claims Langenberg.
Additionally, the group discovered that protein levels varied throughout the body’s organs, particularly in the brain’s neuronal structures.
The study’s lead author, Maik Pietzner, co-director of the Computational Medicine Group at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité and chair of PHURI’s health data committee, stated in a declaration, “Our findings have provided a basis for some age-old knowledge as to why fasting is used for certain conditions.”
But he cautioned that those who are in “ill health” would find fasting to be an impractical alternative.
“We hope that these results can provide light on the reasons why fasting is advantageous in specific situations, which can then be utilized to develop patient-friendly treatments,” he continued.