6 Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Here’s an in-depth analysis of 6 health benefits for/from intermittent fasting. This post is full of evidence-based research and a lot of mini lessons on how the body works. (If the large portions of text overwhelm you, just scroll through to check out the bolded headings!)

If you’re actually excited by the ample info and you want to learn even more, I’ve also cited research articles with each benefit too!

Alright, let’s get nerdy. 🤓

1. Reduces inflammation & oxidative stress

First let’s get an understanding of these words; brace yourself we’re about to get technical.

Let’s start with antioxidants, we may know that berries and pomegranates are loaded with them but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an advertisement explaining what they do. Antioxidants are molecules that help protect against other molecules called free radicals. When free radicals build up, they can cause bodily harm and leave us susceptible to illnesses. When there’s an imbalance between antioxidants and free radicals, that my friends is oxidative stress. (Wow, sorry, took a while to get us here!). I’ll link some studies here that you can check out that support how intermittent fasting helps the body reduce oxidative stress. (1, 2, 3)

Inflammation is another term we may hear a lot. For example, if I sprain my ankle and then my ankle gets red, hot and swollen – that’s inflammation. But let’s go over what it means on a cellular level. (Yep, we’re getting scientific again.) Our body is made of cells, I like to think of cells like little balloons and these balloons (or cells) line our tubular blood vessels in our bodies. When these cells are inflamed, it’s like the balloon is blown up to maximum capacity, which doesn’t leave much room for blood to pass through these tubes. It’s essential for blood to circulate efficiently in order to keep our system in check but this can’t happen if we’re inflamed all the time – this is how inflammation can also cause oxidative stress. Here are other studies that support intermittent fasting reducing inflammation. (4, 5)

That was a lot of information but if you got through this first one, the rest will be a breeze!

2. Can help insulin resistance & reduce blood sugar

It’s no secret that Type 2 Diabetes has become more prevalent over time. According to the American Diabetes Association, diabetes affects more than 34 MILLION Americans (so chances are, you know someone who has been affected by it).(6) Type 2 diabetes develops when the body becomes resistant to insulin. How does this happen exactly? Let’s do another little lesson! (WOOOH!)

We’ve probably heard the term glucose before – that’s a simple sugar, and insulin – that’s a hormone made by the pancreas. Carbohydrate-rich foods like breads, pastas, potatoes, etc break down into glucose in our bodies. We need insulin to be able to get glucose from our bloodstream into our cells to use it as energy or to store it (glucose) for future use. Over time, cells can stop responding to insulin – that’s insulin resistance. When there’s insulin resistance, glucose (sugar) doesn’t get taken up into cells and is left to roam in the blood – sugar in the bloodstream is called blood sugar. As you may be able to deduce, we don’t really want glucose roaming around in our blood. As mentioned earlier, we want it in our cells so we can use or store it. At this point, the pancreas senses all the glucose still in the bloodstream and continues to pump out insulin in hopes that cells will take up glucose. Eventually the levels of blood sugar rise too high for the pancreas to keep up and this paves the way for pre-diabetes and diabetes (Type 2).

Here’s an article on how intermittent fasting has been shown to reduce insulin resistance and lower blood sugar. (7)

3. Can promote weight loss

This is probably the first item you would’ve expected to see on the list. I would say most people probably look into intermittent fasting for the weight loss benefit but I put it at #3 for a reason.

Since we just discussed insulin and insulin resistance, did you wonder where that glucose is stored for later? I knew you did! So let’s chat about it. Insulin signals the liver and muscle cells to store excess glucose for later. When the liver cells and the muscle cells get too full, the liver signals the excess glucose to go to fat cells to be stored as yep, you guessed it, body fat – and therefore causes weight gain.

By reducing potential for insulin resistance and lowering blood sugar with intermittent fasting you’re also helping reduce weight gain. Now I know this isn’t exactly weight loss but i think it’s something pretty important to note!

Weight loss with intermittent fasting occurs because people tend to intake fewer calories when they fast. This isn’t to say you must restrict your caloric intake or that it’s the only way to see weight loss results with intermittent fasting. People merely tend to eat less when they restrict the amount of time they eat for.

These studies supported that intermittent fasting can help with weight loss. (8, 9)

4. Helps with heart health

Sorry to be a bit morbid here but heart disease is currently the US’s leading killer according to the CDC. (10)

Major risk factors of heart disease include high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol (that’s what is commonly known as “bad cholesterol”), high total cholesterol, high triglycerides, being overweight and diabetes.

We’ve already touched on weight and diabetes, so now let’s dive into those other factors and how intermittent fasting helps reduce them.

It’s difficult to explain the exact mechanism of how intermittent fasting has a positive effect on these risk factors. So let’s review some evidence-based research that has been done. Various studies were conducted on groups of people who chose to participate in intermittent fasting for about a month (29-30 days). Blood tests and other parameters were measured before the participants began intermittent fasting and after they practiced intermittent fasting. It was found that HDL cholesterol (this is commonly referred to as “good cholesterol) was increased, LDL cholesterol, overall cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure had all decreased after the study time frame had ended. (11, 12, 13, 14)

5. Helps with cellular repair & can prevent Alzheimer’s Disease

When undergoing intermittent fasting, a metabolic process called autophagy occurs on a cellular level. In essence, autophagy is a process of “recycling” the remaining proteins that are left in our cells. When we metabolize proteins, not all of them are used; some are broken, some are dysfunctional – those left behind. When autophagy occurs, cells are broken down so those protein fragments that were once left behind can be re-built into functional elements. (15, 16)

The process of autophagy is especially helpful for protection against diseases like Alzheimer’s. (17) Alzheimer’s is the most common neurodegenerative disease and while there is no cure at this time, it’s great to know of methods for prevention.

There’s also evidence that autophagy helps suppress tumor growth too! (18)

6. Aids in brain health

We’ve already touched on so many ways intermittent fasting helps various systems of the body, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that it also helps improve brain health too!

Intermittent fasting has been shown to increase the levels of a certain brain hormone called brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF). (19) Evidence supports that BDNF is involved in depression; correlating that decreased levels of BDNF are exhibited in depressed patients. (20)

Research also shows that intermittent fasting may increase growth potential of nerve cells, which can be great for brain function. (21)

Thanks for sticking around to read this far! To note, these are not all of the benefits of intermittent fasting, there are many more but as you’ve seen this article is long enough.

Please always consult your physician before making any changes. This post is strictly for education purposes and should not be misconstrued as medical advice.

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