Fake Fasting, Real Results
Calorie restriction and fasting definitely help extend our health spans. Here's why, plus an easy way to get those benefits without going hungry.
Here's how to look jacked and live a long, disease-free life. Besides working out, you only need to do two things:
- Eat a lot to fuel workouts and build muscle and strength.
- Don't eat anything to increase your life and health span.
See? It's easy. Eat a lot while not eating anything at all!
It might be the biggest fitness paradox: you need to eat a lot of protein, healthy carbs, and good fats to get jacked and be healthy. Yet at the same time, severely calorie-restricted diets are proven to extend life span and fight off diseases. So, do you want to be muscular, or do want to be thin and weak, but live a long time?
The popular solution to this dilemma? Fasting, in one form or another.
Religious fasting aside, the longevity and health effects require anywhere from 12 to 72 hours to kick in. You can fast for shorter periods frequently, or longer periods infrequently. There are one-day fasts, weekend fasts, three-day fasts, an every-other-day model, and a whole catalog of intermittent plans, each with its own guru willing to sell you a plan teaching you how to occasionally not eat.
Based on various studies, all those fasting schedules have health benefits. But why? And can we trigger these same life-extending, disease-fighting mechanisms without fasting?
Spoiler Alert: Resveratrol, specifically solubilized trans-resveratrol or Rez-V (Buy at Amazon), mimics the same beneficial cellular processes as fasting.
But we'll get to that. First, let's look at how calorie restriction and fasting affect health span.
How Does Calorie Restriction Extend Lives?
There are hundreds of books on this complex topic, so here's the TL;DR version:
- It all comes down to the seven sirtuins, particularly sirtuin 1 or SIRT1. Sirtuins are proteins inside cells that regulate various processes, mostly those related to aging, metabolism, and stress resistance. Some researchers call them "longevity proteins."
- SIRT1 kicks into action when calories are restricted. It's a protective mechanism during times of energy/calorie shortage. Think of it as a "preservative" that keeps various bodily processes going during food emergencies. Sirtuins evolved to help organisms like humans survive periods of low food availability.
- Since SIRT1 is expressed in nearly every cell in the human body (organ cells, muscle cells, brain cells, fat cells, immune cells, blood vessel cells, etc.) its actions and benefits are many. Here are a handful:
- Repairs DNA and influences gene expression
- Regulates cellular energy metabolism
- Regulates inflammation
- Supports mitochondrial biogenesis (the production of new mitochondria)
- Preserves brain cells and reduces neurodegenerative damage
- Triggers autophagy (cellular cleaning) and reduces oxidative damage
- Protects the cardiovascular system (regulates endothelial function)
- Enhances insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism
How Long Do You Have to Fast?
Again, here's the TL;DR version compiled from numerous studies:
- Short-Term Fasting: 12 to 24 hours – SIRT1 is activated even with short-term fasts. It's enough to begin improving metabolic efficiency, insulin sensitivity, and energy metabolism. The process of cellular cleanup starts during this time period, too.
- Moderate Fasting: (24-48 hours) – Greatly amplifies cellular cleanup and insulin sensitivity.
- Prolonged Fasting: (48-72+ hours) – More profound benefits like autophagy, metabolic reset, and stem cell activation.
"Can I fast for longer than 72 hours?" Outside of religious purposes, it's not really necessary. Also, if you're super excited about not eating, make sure that's not a convenient rationalization for a disordered eating tendency.
The Mimetic Hack: Resveratrol
All those benefits sound great. The only drawback is the not-eating part. While there's nothing wrong with an occasional modest fast, we can also trigger the SIRT1 pathway with a "mimetic" – a compound that mimics the biological effects of another process without needing that process to occur. Resveratrol (Buy at Amazon) is a caloric restriction mimetic – it mimics the SIRT1 activation effects of fasting.
Resveratrol triggers SIRT1 by increasing the levels of NAD+ (a coenzyme required for SIRT1 activity) and directly interacting with SIRT1, enhancing its deacetylase activity, which then promotes cellular processes such as metabolism regulation, stress resistance, and longevity pathways like those activated during caloric restriction.
How Much Resveratrol Does This?
Studies have looked at dosages ranging from 150 to 2000 mg daily. More is better up to a point.
- 150–500 mg – At these dosages, resveratrol activates SIRT1 and improves insulin sensitivity, mitochondrial function, and markers of metabolic health. Improved blood vessel health and reduced inflammation are also seen.
- 500–2000 mg – Higher doses (above 500 mg) are generally more effective at robustly activating SIRT1 and mimicking the effects of caloric restriction in terms of autophagy and longevity-related pathways. One study uses 2000 mg daily, but this was a study on people who already had Alzheimer's disease. (Resveratrol reduced the progression of the disease.)
So, for most people wanting to reap the benefits of fasting without going hungry, 600 mg is a solid daily dose. Overweight adults showed great success with 1000 mg in another study.
What to Take
Standard resveratrol has poor bioavailability: it's rapidly metabolized and cleared from the body. To get around this, only use trans-resveratrol, the bioactive form.
Rez-V High Absorption Resveratrol (Buy at Amazon) contains 600 mg of trans-resveratrol per two-softgel serving. To further increase absorption and bioavailability, Rez-V uses solubilized trans-resveratrol, so a smaller amount has a greater effect. Generally, take one serving per day. For a more aggressive calorie-restriction mimetic effect, take three softgels (900 mg).
