Lesser known but highly important benefits of intermittent fasting

Some of the well known benefits of intermittent fasting are lowering insulin, weight loss, and reducing inflammation. But there are some remarkable and lesser known benefits of eating only in a short window of time everyday. These are:

Epigenetic effect

Genes carry instructions for proteins to perform functions in our body. This includes functions like releasing hormones, making neurotransmitters, releasing glucose into the bloodstream, and many more. The term Epigenetic is used to describe things that control genes. Your nutrition, exercise, sleep, and, yes, fasting, all have an epigenetic effect.

Fasting is a potent trigger for turning up anti-aging genes, like SIRT3.

Fasting turns down genes that:

Are overexpressed in cancer, like RRBP1, FMO5, MUC20
Create proteins that can clump into amyloid plaque, which is involved in Alzheimer’s disease

DNA repair

DNA can suffer from mutations, replication errors, and chemical modification. This damage can be caused by things like exposure to radiation or free radicals in the body. The body has a natural process for repairing damaged DNA. Fasting improves this repair process.

Autophagy

Autophagy is a process that recycles dead cells and dead proteins. It cleans out microbes and viruses out of the body. Fasting triggers autophagy.

Antioxidant support

Oxidative stress plays a major part in the development of chronic and degenerative ailments such as cancer, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Antioxidants created by the body play an important role in the neutralization of oxidative stress. Fasting helps the body build an antioxidant network.

Gut diversity and healing

With intermittent fasting, your gut microbes become stronger and more diversified. When you are not eating for 16 or 18 hours a day, you give your gut a chance to clear stuff out that may otherwise be sitting there for a while. This also gives your gut a chance to heal the gut lining so you don’t develop a leaky gut.

Conclusion

The benefits of fasting are not limited to lowering insulin, weight loss, and reducing inflammation. Fasting can be beneficial at the epigenetic and immune system levels as well. It is a simple and elegant way in which we can feel great and live better.