Fasting For Longer Life (The Protein Connection)

For a long time now, scientists have seen the positive effects associated with fasting.  Most importantly in this discussion is the purpose of fasting to extend ones life.  Knowing that fasting causes the body to go into autolysis, we see how many of the benefits associated with cleaning old debree from the system work.  As the body runs out of outside sources of nutrition, it goes inward to meet its needs.  In doing this, it switches from a primarily glucose or sugar burning metabolism to a ketogenic or fat burning machine.  While this happens, the brain and red blood cells still need glucose, so some muscle tissue is temporarily lost.  Old and deformed muscle tissues are consumed at a rate that slows down each day.  A pure water fast will require much rest to avoid excessive muscle depletion.

Recent research show that protein restriction may be far more effective than calorie restriction in prolonging the lives of humans. Many studies show that restricting calories prolongs the lives of yeast, worms, spiders, flies, insects, rats and probably monkeys. Humans who severely restrict calories have long-life characteristics, such as low cholesterol and blood pressure and hearts that are more than 15 years younger than those of other North Americans their age (Experimental Gerontology, August 2007).

Remember though, that in this particular post, we aren't solely concerned with entering autolysis.  Instead, we want to take a look at your body's IGF-1 levels.  When worms, flies and mice are put on calorie restricted diets, we see a drop in their IGF-1 levels (Insulin Like Growth Factor).  This means that they are going to live longer as a result of their calorie restriction.  The more IGF-1 you have in your system, the more DNA damage you will have with genetic mutations, thus leading to various cancers and diseases and a shorter overall life span from damaged DNA being reproduced over and over.

We know now from studying humans in who have been calorie restrictive with their diets, that their IGF-1 levels don't appear to drop like they do in other test subjects.  This is what prompted a theory that perhaps a specific food item is causing these levels to remain the same in humans, but not in the test subjects.  To figure this out, there had to be a major difference in diet on off days.  What was this difference?  Protein intake...

However, most of the test group of humans who restrict calories do not have a drop in a hormone called Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) that appears necessary for living a long time. High blood levels of IGF-1 are associated with premature aging and diseases of aging such as diabetes and cancer. IGF-1 levels are lower than normal in worms, flies and mice on restricted-calorie diets, but not in humans. This week a report shows that IGF-1 shortens life by increasing cell DNA genetic damage, and causes cancer by blocking apoptosis that causes cancer cells to kill themselves before they destroy their host (Science Translational Medicine, February 16, 2011).

Luigi Fontana, a professor of medicine at Washington University in St Louis, noticed that most calorie-restricting humans eat high levels of protein, about 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight/day. This is more than the US government-recommended intake of 0.8 g/kg/day, and even higher than the 1.2 g/kg/day that the average American eats. Dr. Fontana asked humans on calorie restricted diets to reduce their intake of protein to 0.95 g/kg/day. After just three weeks of reduced protein intake, their IGF-1 levels dropped markedly (Aging Cell, September, 2008).

Vegans tend to have the lowest levels of IGF-1 in comparison to meat eaters.  This is a problem, as I am a big meat eater.  I raise my own chickens and love venison.  I also love a lot of high protein snacks like cheeses and drink a lot of milk.  Does this mean that I have to give these things up in order to have very low IGF-1 levels?  Of course not!  In fact, I wouldn't recommend it at all, as these items play an important part in overall health.  You need protein in order to survive.  If you were to only consume to types of foods and life a long healthy life, they would need to be Fat and Protein, in that order.  Carbs are the only food item we never need to consume.  Your body can convert protein into glucose at about a 58% efficiency rate if it needs to.

So knowing that it's OK to eat meat (Although organic should be all you eat), as humans thrived on meat and fat all through history, we simply want to know how much of it should we eat to achieve an IGF-1 lowering effect similar to vegans.  Here's how...

Among the calorie-restricting humans, vegans have lower levels of IGF-1 than meat-eaters (Rejuvenation Research, February 2007). Strict vegans also have significantly lower IGF-1 levels than people who restrict just calories, even if they are heavier and have more body fat. Strict vegans take in about 10 percent of their calories from protein, whereas those on calorie restriction tended to get 24 percent of calories from protein. Other data show that diets lower in protein might protect against some cancers. So restricting protein may be more important than restricting calories.

If fruit flies and rodents are fed special diets that restrict protein, they can eat as many calories as they want and still live longer (Nature, December 2009). This suggests that as long as you are not overweight, you may not need to restrict calories. Instead, restrict only protein which is far easier to do.

Furthermore, you can probably eat all the fruits and vegetables you want and not restrict calories as long as you restrict protein. That's very good news because it is far easier to restrict protein than it is to restrict all foods. The only way that you can restrict calories and still remain healthy is to eat a diet based on vegetables. It now appears that you extend your life far more by reducing protein that you would by restricting just calories.
http://www.drmirkin.com/public/ezine022011.html

So what does this mean?  It means that on your "Fasting Days", where you may have a busy lifestyle and are not able to take your body into a real autolysis fast through water only, DON'T EAT PROTEIN.  It's that simple.  So, if you are going to do a 3 day fast and have a hard job where you need to still be very physical, try consuming mostly vegetables with some fruit if needed and all the fat you want.  Coconut and olive oil are great.  Also anything that's been grass fed, like organic grass fed beef tallow.  Remember that Rabbit Starvation happened when travelers eat high protein low fat foods (Rabbit, small birds ect.)  By doing the opposite and not eating any protein, you will benefit by having lower IGF-1 levels and a longer life because of it.

So to conclude, on regular days, try to keep your overall protein levels below 25% of total calories and preferably in the 1-15% range.  Then on your protein fasting days, eat all the veggies and fat you want but don't consume any protein if possible.

If you still like the full benefits associated with fasting and not just protein fasting, then you can try juice fasting where you consume slowly small amounts of juices (Limit root vegetables...carrots, beets ect.) as they are relatively high in sugar, throughout the day.  If you don't want to completely wipe out your calories, then remember to add olive oil to your juices before drinking them and to consume coconut oil in small amounts during the day.  Melt in water and drink, or mix with your favorite foods.

However...

According to THIS SITE  a different conclusion can be drawn.  The conclusion is that based on the dietary guidelines used in the studies and the absence of real whole foods provided throughout, suggest that little to no conclusions can be drawn in relation to how it might effect humans as the diet is comprised of all highly processed manufactured sugars ect. 

Secondly, the studies don't demonstrate how the diet would effect someone who wasn't on it from birth.  What about someone starting it in mid to late life?  Are there any benefits then?  We simply don't know...

Keeping your protein intake too low can result in the following: 

Some symptoms of protein deficiency include apathy, distended belly, swollen legs, stunted growth and flaky skin.Kwashiorkor is a disease that occurs when there is a protein deficiency in the diet that may cause mental retardation and death.

Too little protein in a diet will also cause the immune system to be weakened considerably.

Protein deficiency is mainly found in developing countries, but can also occur in developed countries when people try new methods to control their weight.

For all adult females, 46 grams of protein is considered an adequate amount of protein intake daily. For adult males, 56 grams of protein are required. Children up to the age of 9 require 34 grams of protein. The conditions described above mainly occur in children who receive much less than 34 grams of protein per day for a prolonged period.

Read more: The Effects of Too Little Protein in a Diet | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5009019_effects-little-protein-diet.html#ixzz1J8rH1ivL

Final Thoughts...

Setting your protein consumption as such low levels as 5-10% may be to no real avail.  You may end up weaker and sicker because of it.  In addition, you may become like many of the test subjects excluded from the final study...Dead.  They didn't count the subjects that died early because of such low protein but instead only counted the few that outlived the higher protein group.  Which group would you prefer to be in? 

I for one really enjoy my protein, which is usually from all organic and preferably raised or hunted by myself. 

So simple conclusion...Only avoid your protein on your fasting days.  This means that you can still juice fast or at the very least, consume fat and fruits and veggies while avoiding protein for short periods at a time.  I still prefer the method of fasting myself until better studies arise demonstrating how fasting from protein can and has positively effected a human being...