- 22 minutes ago
Michael Mosley examines the powerful new science behind the ancient idea of fasting, as he sets himself the ambitious goal of living longer, staying younger and losing weight without making drastic changes to his life. He tests out the science of fasting on himself and reflects on the life-changing results.
进食, 断食与长寿 :--长寿几乎是部分国家不分民族世界所有人民的共同追求, 中国历史上, 秦始皇, 汉武帝等强大的帝王, 也不能免俗地求仙, 服用灵丹妙药, 以求长生 (1) 多运动,生命在于运动 (2) 多吃蔬菜, 豆制品, 增加膳食纤维 (3) 保持豁达的心胸, 心眼小肯定不会长寿 (4) 良好的生活...
进食, 断食与长寿 :--长寿几乎是部分国家不分民族世界所有人民的共同追求, 中国历史上, 秦始皇, 汉武帝等强大的帝王, 也不能免俗地求仙, 服用灵丹妙药, 以求长生 (1) 多运动,生命在于运动 (2) 多吃蔬菜, 豆制品, 增加膳食纤维 (3) 保持豁达的心胸, 心眼小肯定不会长寿 (4) 良好的生活...
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00:06i love life so i want to remain young energetic enjoy it for as long as i can
00:14i'm medically trained i know all the standard advice for staying healthy
00:19but in my case it doesn't seem to be working
00:25i've discovered that my body is not the lean long-lived machine i would like it to be
00:31third of your body's fat thank you for making that point so emphatically i wanted to see if science
00:39can offer a different way to stop the rot slow the clock so i set off to find experts who
00:47are trying
00:47to combat the ravages of aging we are rewriting human physiology here
00:54if you can find something else that you can do that it doesn't hurt you
00:58that benefits you and that causes these changes i'd like to know
01:04what i discovered was truly surprising
01:09it involves no pills no injections and no hidden costs it's all a question of what you eat
01:16or rather what you don't eat last night i dreamt i ate a sandwich and then i felt fantastically guilty
01:24it's about fasting but fasting made easier if i were to go on to joe's lifestyle in a year you
01:33are
01:33gonna you're gonna you're gonna be cured
01:42the big thing is that this is the beginning of something which i think could be huge if it takes
01:48off and if it heads off in the direction that i imagine it will then this this could be genuinely
01:53revolutionary
02:19there are plenty of people who stay young and fit well beyond retirement age
02:33they mainly do it the traditional way through lots and lots of exercise
02:39today i've come to the london marathon nearly 36 000 bodies of all shapes and sizes are tackling
02:47the 26 mile course some are young many not so young
03:00there's an absolutely fantastic atmosphere here now i have never run the marathon and i have no plans
03:06to ever run the marathon but there are plenty of people running today who are far older than me
03:14there are 7 000 people in their 50s and incredibly enough there are seven people who are in their 80s
03:24or older
03:31i'm going to try and flag a few of them down to ask how they do it
03:36hello how are you hello how are you hello so how old are you 78 and how old are you
03:43thank you
03:50what's the secret ed running i didn't want you just eating well
03:55hard work so that's all anyone who can run a marathon in their 70s deserves my respect
04:04but i'm waiting for a man who makes septuagenarians look youthful
04:13fauja singh is amazing he has been active all his life but he only took up serious running in his
04:2180s
04:22so what is it that keeps him so remarkably fit and energetic hi there
04:30how old is fauja 101 he's born on the first of april 1911
04:37unfortunately he hasn't quite mastered the english language yet do you mind ask him how he's feeling
04:48he goes it's not easy yeah uh but the thing is it's got to be the job's got to be
04:53done so he's
04:53not finished it you're not going to give up are you
05:03that although he's 101 fauja has never had surgery he shows no signs of heart disease
05:13and he takes no medication
05:19he believes that his long life and his incredible health is down to his diet
05:28so any particular diet uh he has no particular diet it's a simple punjabi farmer's diet
05:37just fresh food but his secret is he has smaller portions right uh in poor countries people die
05:44starvation in rich countries people die of overeating so how much does he eat
05:49say compared to you or i uh he would eat what would be considered half a portion almost a child
05:56portion so child portions probably about half the amount of calories your eye would eat
06:04by restricting his food intake so dramatically fauja has unknowingly been testing a theory that
06:11has been around nearly as long as he has a scientific theory which is only now really coming into its
06:21own
06:27i've taken the tube to the finish line i want to catch fauja become hopefully the world's oldest marathon runner
06:44and after seven hours and 49 minutes he succeeds
06:55thank you
07:12that is absolutely unbelievable he was 101 years old and he has just covered 26 miles now i can't imagine
07:21that in 50 years time i'm going to be running down the mile but i want to be like him
07:26i want to be
07:26mentally active and i want to be physically active i want to stay younger for longer
07:42for decades teams of scientists around the world have been intensely studying aging
07:48now clearly genes play a significant part in how quickly and well we age but there's nothing much you can
07:56do about your genes there is however something you can do about what you eat
08:06and here in america they are starting to turn out some truly remarkable research linking food with
08:12longevity it seems it's not just about what we eat but how and when we eat it
08:21our story begins in the dust bowls of america during the 1930s there was a terrible drought food was
08:29scarce and the whole country was in the grips of the great depression now you would imagine in such
08:36difficult times that life expectancy would fall but in fact it rose
08:43during the darkest years of great depression 1929 to 1933 life expectancy increased by a remarkable six years
08:58now on the face of it that is really surprising and yet clues as to why could also be found
09:05from research done back in the 1930s
09:09nutritionists at cornell university working with animals discovered that if you severely restrict
09:15the amount they eat they live longer much much longer
09:26so the next obvious question if you do the same with humans will it have the same effects
09:34well it's been eight decades since that observation and only now a scientist really beginning to
09:41understand the link between calorie restriction and longevity in humans at long last it seems we are
09:49starting to get answers
10:00washington university is at the heart of this new science we are rewriting human physiology here
10:08it's astonishing you know how a simple dietary intervention can really change how the human body works
10:16basically professor luigi fontana has spent the last 10 years studying a group of people who severely calorie restrict every
10:26single day
10:29and he is astonished by what he's found
10:33i mean these people they look like a different species that's quite a big statement isn't it yeah
10:39yeah i mean we are finding that they are going to live longer than their parents and brothers on the
10:45typical american diet or western diets
10:53luigi is clearly impressed so i wanted to meet one of this new species of human for myself
11:00lovely lovely house well where the direction's good very good thank you joe cordell is a crony
11:06a calorie restrictor on optimal nutrition and that means a lot of fruit and veg
11:16i went ahead and kind of put everything out because i thought you might want to have some breakfast
11:20that would be delicious thank you can you see when i imagine a calorie restrictor i imagine somebody who
11:25lives basically on a couple of you know carrots or something like that i didn't think you'd go in for
11:31breakfast because i'm eating joe kicks off his day with a mountain of fruit some of which he then
11:38throws away and then what i like to do is add some apple to it but when you're in my
11:44position i kind of
11:45want to to get as much nutritional value as i can for the calorie and virtually all the nutritional value
11:52is in is in the peel okay so you're going to sit the peel in and throw away the rest
11:57of it you'll do
11:58the reverse of what most people but you know it's great because you know that it literally is 95 of
12:02the nutritional value here is in the skin is it's in the skin the rest is sugar and it's calories
12:07and
12:07this is this is generally what i'll have each morning the whole thing yeah so that's a big bowl
12:13do you ever think oh god what if i'm wrong what if it's all wrong that i've um done this
12:19for
12:1910 20 years and actually a new bit of science comes out which says it's actually all nonsense
12:24i i tell you my brother who weighs 100 pounds more than i do and he's about my age yeah
12:30okay uh
12:30he's all time making the joke to me that that that he's going to end up out living me and
12:36and
12:36in his opinion i will have suffered for nothing but but you know the point is that i enjoy doing
12:41it i mean living a healthy lifestyle is fun there are an estimated hundred thousand cronies worldwide
12:49people living on a diet which is rich in nutrients but low in calories joe looks fit but not impressively
12:58young perhaps luigi has been exaggerating so what i'd love to do is take you off and do a number
13:04of
13:04tests and see just how we compare okay i'm going for that so is this a challenge this is a
13:11challenge
13:11indeed um a challenge i suspect i may well lose but for a decade joe's been eating 1900 calories a
13:24day
13:25i've averaged around 2300 quite a few of them donuts and burgers how much do you think you weigh oh
13:33i
13:34think it's probably about 180 oh more than 180 breathe in uh should be around uh 134 135 136.
13:43just have to move it down one notch 134. oh right on yeah
13:51we're both in our 50s and i really don't think we look like different generations let alone species
13:58so how different are we just need for you to relax in there sit still no talking
14:07some of the simplest ways of assessing aging don't need specialist equipment oh this is good
14:14balance is controlled by your inner ear
14:20okay as you age ear structures deteriorate and your balance gets worse
14:26one more you can test it by standing on your weaker leg with your eyes closed how long did that
14:33make 6.59 seconds that's not very good not good at all the average 55 year old should manage eight
14:40seconds near down to yeah you're doing well for the average 20 year old over 30 seconds most um 20
14:49year olds can manage but it's one of those skills that drops off dramatically um i think you prove the
14:53point
14:54you can stop you can stop you can stop another good test is reaction time which drops off with age
15:03not good hey this one only needs a ruler at our age you should be able to catch it around
15:10the five inch mark
15:12very good that was four you're doing pretty well that's meant
15:21luigi's methods are rather more scientific we did a range of other medical tests including blood tests
15:30now he's about to give us our results feels a bit like being the headmaster's office doesn't it we're
15:37waiting for the results will you get an a star will i get a b minus luigi's face tells me
15:44that what i'm
15:45about to hear is not good news total body fat in joseph is 11.5 this is typical of a
15:55super athlete you
15:57know this 11 percent body fat it's it's very low for a 50 54 55 years old man yours is
16:0527.1 fat
16:07third of your body's fat thank you for making that point so emphatically
16:13and he's still not done talking about my fat the abdominal fat is around 30 percent
16:19abdominal fat is really the bad guy the higher the abdominal fat the higher the risk of developing
16:26type 2 diabetes cardiovascular disease no doubt about it it is also risk factor for cancer
16:33so basically your cardio metabolic profile it's it's not good for your age i mean you know i think
16:40you know you should do something to improve it what we can say is that joseph is not going to
16:45develop cardiovascular disease it's impossible to develop stroke mycardia infarction or heart failure
16:52these three diseases are responsible for 40 percent of the death now in us and uk no chance he'll die
16:59of that i mean one in a million and if i were to go on to joe's lifestyle yeah in
17:05a year you are gonna
17:07you're gonna be cured
17:11i now understand what luigi means
17:16it is as if we were two different species joe's diet seems to be keeping his organs in pristine
17:22condition my diet is undermining my health and fast
17:30well that was very sobering luigi does not mince his words he talked a bit about abdominal fat in
17:37fact he talked quite a lot about my abdominal fat and i've never thought of myself as particularly fat
17:41but it was the sort of two visions he held out to me one where if i continue as i
17:47am at the moment
17:48i'm heading almost certainly for heart disease and possibly worse the other is if i embrace the cr way
17:56the calorie restriction way he said that i could be effectively cured in less than a year that my
18:03risk factors would move from being almost certainly a cardiac victim at some point to one in a million
18:09and when you put it quite as starkly as that it certainly gives me quite a lot to think about
18:30even though the evidence supporting the benefits of calorie restriction is getting stronger all the
18:37time i cannot in all honesty imagine myself doing what joe does
18:44which creates something of a dilemma
18:50so what i really want to do is try to understand the ways in which calorie restriction works
18:57then hopefully i can get all the delicious benefits without actually having to do it
19:04i'm in los angeles a city that is notoriously addicted to youth in fact many people here seem to think
19:11that growing old and wrinkled is optional i'm not going to see anyone as superficial as a plastic
19:18surgeon i'm actually here to meet one of the world's foremost experts on aging
19:24so
19:31hi there hey hello professor valta lungo studies the complex mechanisms which control aging
19:40he's honed in on a critical pathway that links what we eat with how we age
19:48he's taking me to see two mice they are both the same age same species same sex
19:58but there's one significant difference between them
20:02the little one is going to be living an awful lot longer than the big one
20:10this little mice mouse right here holds the world record for longevity extension in a mammal
20:17oh right that is remarkable so how long would these sort of species of mice last the big mice
20:23here about two years and the little mice about a 40 percent longer lifespan right yeah they are
20:29very different aren't they oh yeah he is trying to bite me yes i can feel that one
20:37okay she'll have the double glow hopefully it worked yeah i learned the hard way yeah the big mice
20:44already has a 50 percent chance of being dead okay and so it's doing well to be alive he is
20:49is
20:49likely to be alive that's right and the small one probably has another year to go all right the
20:53little guy will live on to the equivalent of what 120 in human exactly yeah another another 30 to 40
21:00years in human years and i pick you up yeah go ahead yeah by the tail oh by the tail
21:05okay
21:09the little mouse i'm holding is actually a man-made creation
21:14the reason he's so small and so long-lived is because he's been genetically engineered
21:21he has incredibly low levels of a growth hormone called insulin-like growth factor one
21:29and it seems igf1 is a key factor linking calorie restriction and longevity
21:42clues to the link come from this group of people who live in a remote region of ecuador
21:50they have a very rare condition called loron syndrome which affects less than 350 people worldwide
22:02whoa that's you is it it does make you look like a giant yeah i'm the i'm the tall guy
22:07there the
22:08shortest one is probably just a little bit over three and a half feet tall sort of up to my
22:12belly button
22:13something like that is that right yeah yeah what interests researchers like walter is not their size
22:20but the fact they seem to be virtually immune to two of the west's biggest killers the big
22:26findings of course where uh they don't seem to get either diabetes or cancer they do all the normal sort
22:32of sinful things we all do like smoke drink and things like that yes yes they they do the normal
22:36and
22:37more so they have very unhealthy lifestyle most of them are to some extent at least overweight and
22:43they seem to really not watch anything they do they smoke or eat a very high calorie diets and then
22:50they
22:51they look at me and they say oh it doesn't matter i'm immune but the incredible thing is that there's
22:58no evidence of not a single one of them ever dying of cancer yet their normal height relatives they get
23:04cancer like everybody else people with loron syndrome have a mutation which makes them small
23:12but which also seems to protect them against all these diseases
23:18it's incredible working with them
23:23it's a great group and of course for us is a group that in one mutation can tell us about
23:29diabetes
23:29cancer cardiovascular diseases and aging the ecuadorian villagers and the long-lived mice
23:40have something in common their bodies produce exceptionally low levels of the growth hormone igf1
23:50this discovery helped volta piece together the role the igf1 plays in the complicated business of aging
23:58aging our bodies are normally in go-go mode cells constantly driven to divide by igf1
24:07but when igf1 levels drop our cells shift into a completely different mode
24:14the body slows production of new cells and starts repairing existing ones instead
24:21dna damage is more likely to get fixed and that's why the mice and the villagers are protected from age
24:29-related diseases
24:40but what's the link to calorie restriction in humans
24:47it turns out there is something in the food we eat that affects how much igf1 our bodies produce
24:59that something is protein when we eat a lot of protein our cells get locked in go-go mode
25:07so it's basically like slamming your foot in the accelerator saying go go go is that right exactly
25:13it's uh pushing the cell to burn fuel in go-go mode the body is more susceptible to some cancers
25:21and diabetes
25:22because your cells are growing too fast for damage to be efficiently repaired so it's like driving your
25:29car all the time and never taking it to the mechanic right so that's the key basically is to somehow
25:34find a way to switch your body from going brum brum brum into a sort of repair mode look after
25:41me
25:41make my dna better exactly
25:46so how do you reduce your igf1 well studies on calorie restrictors suggest that eating less helps
25:54but it's not enough as well as cutting calories you have to cut your protein intake
26:00not entirely that would be a very bad idea it's about sticking to recommended guidelines something
26:08most of us fail to do and you don't have to be a crony to lower igf1 there is another
26:16way fasting
26:18in fasting there's a much more dramatic and much quicker response and so within 24 hours you decrease
26:29your glucose level and you decrease your main growth factor which is igf1
26:37i do find it hard to believe that just a few days of fasting is going to be enough to
26:44jolt my body
26:45into a more healthy state but i'm certainly intrigued and i want to find out more
26:53so i've had my igf measured back in london and they tell me that it's 28. that good bad
27:01that's not very bad but that's high enough that uh based on a number of studies including our own
27:08it puts you in a higher risk category for several different cancers including prostate cancer
27:16valta believes i should start to see some pretty impressive results after just three days and four
27:23nights of fasting but it's a daunting prospect i think it's quite tough fasting is tough isn't it
27:31have you done it yourself i've done it myself yes i've fasted for for four days uh several times and
27:38to me
27:38it was very tough yeah and still if i look ahead at doing fasting i see it as a tough
27:44uh four days i'm
27:45not looking forward i mean some people do but i don't i'm italian you know so i look forward to
27:51uh
27:51eating well so bear that image in mind yeah the greedy italian stopping eating when i'm feeling weak
27:57about it there you go thank you prolonged fasting can be dangerous and valta thinks it should only be
28:13undertaken by people in good health and preferably under close supervision so he will be keeping an eye
28:21on me okay i decided good to um try this fast which is going to be a three and a
28:27half day fast and all i'm
28:30going to have is lots of water black tea and one 50 calorie cup of soup a day now oh
28:41god i have never
28:42done anything quite like this before so i imagine it's going to be really tough but i am interested
28:48i'm also i must admit quite concerned about some of the rather bad news health news i've been getting
28:55recently so um it'll be a challenge but i'm sure i i'll manage it reasonably sure
29:07and so my fast begins
29:17right it is now 10 30 at night and i am hungry it has been just about 25 hours since
29:27i last ate a meal
29:28um prospect of going to bed while hungry is not a great one i think it's getting to me because
29:38last
29:38night i had a dream and i dreamt i ate a sandwich and then i felt fantastically guilty so vivid
29:44i had
29:44looked around see if there were any crumbs in the bed but it weren't i guess time to go to
29:49work
29:53simple diet intervention can really change how the human body works it puts you in a higher risk
30:01category
30:04just as valter warned me the first day was tough not really because i was that hungry but simply
30:11because i had never done anything like this before it was fear of the unknown
30:18by nightfall i'm beginning to think this is a very bad idea
30:25particularly when i had dinner with the crew
30:33or rather when they had dinner
30:37so yeah here i am in a nice old korean restaurant with the rest of the crew
30:43and they are currently digging in enjoying you guys beautiful yeah
30:51it's a good smell i really really wouldn't mind a little bite
30:59i do feel very hungry fortunately my dinner is waiting for me in my hotel room
31:23my delicious miso soup here give a bit of a stir with the hotel pen because there's no other
31:30calorie around
31:35hmm health 25 calories worth and i'm looking forward to it
31:48okay final full day of fasting delicious breakfast here black tea i'm feeling a bit lightheaded but
31:55otherwise actually all right so just 24 hours to go and now i'm pretty confident i'll be able to do
32:02it
32:11i've learned that hunger does not build and build but comes in waves that pass
32:17by now i have depleted my body's store of glucose and will have switched to burning fat for fuel instead
32:25and if valter is right my liver should also have stopped producing so much igf1 putting my cells into repair
32:35mode
32:39finally finally it's seven a.m day four i'm getting my blood test done
32:45so after this i can go and have breakfast
32:48absolutely the first food for three and a half days the first food for 86 hours
32:52as well who's counting i'm just hoping that this is going to show some changes particularly my igf
32:59because if i spent the last three and a half to four days not eating and the results have been
33:04absolutely zero that would be very very depressing
33:10the fast is over
33:14well that is very i can just sort of begin to feel the empty spaces i wasn't
33:19wasn't actually terribly hungry when i woke up this morning but
33:25when i start eating this i realize what he is missing
33:33later that afternoon i meet up with valter to find out if it's all been worthwhile
33:40i broke my fast this morning i had some porridge and i had some bacon and i feel better oh
33:46good good
33:47yeah i'll feel even more terrific if these results are any good yeah yeah let's take a look at them
33:52so your insulin like growth factor one igf1 this is the normal value the bad news you're almost at
33:59the top of the normal range for american standards you're doing good yeah but not good full stop but
34:04not good for that i'm an average american am i that's that's right yeah yeah and the good news is
34:10with
34:10your fasting diet you drop to almost half so wow that's big isn't it yeah that's a big drop it's
34:16very
34:16dramatic drop so you respond very well i have to say it's um fascinating i mean seeing that is very
34:22very um surprising surprising and a huge relief halving my igf1 should cut my risk of certain cancers
34:31like prostate cancer which my father had my blood sugar has also dropped to healthy levels which i'm
34:37really pleased about to see whether i challenge you in four days to get uh more extreme uh metabolic
34:46changes than these with anything you want i think this is quite extreme enough yeah yeah but you know
34:53if you can if you can find something else that you can do that it doesn't hurt you that benefits
34:57you
34:57and they cause these changes i'd like to know okay but walter says unless i switch to a lower protein
35:08more plant-based diet the effects won't last
35:15i'll also need to fast once every couple of months to maintain the benefits
35:21can i really see myself doing that you have to make a decision now in your case what do you
35:28want
35:28to do you know and and there's a lot of drugs that you could be taking and is that what
35:33you want to do
35:33and and if you do so in a few years you're going to be the typical or in a number
35:38of years you're going
35:39to be the typical 65 year old in europe that takes uh eight drugs a day right and that's uh
35:45so that's the
35:46option uh and and you know that's your call thank you okay that's quite an interesting choice
36:01i mean that is really really impressive that in just three and a half days if this data is right
36:07and the animal data is right i have massively decreased my risk of a whole range of age-related diseases
36:16the big question in my mind at the moment is can i do fasting once a month for however long
36:23it takes
36:24or is there a better way a different way a more manageable way out there that can do much of
36:32what
36:32this does but perhaps with a little less pain what i've discovered about myself is that the biggest
36:41problem with prolonged fasting is me you have to make a decision now fasting is tough despite knowing
36:56all the wonderful benefits i just can't bring myself to do it
37:15but the great thing about science is there is always someone doing further work building
37:21on what others have achieved which is why i'm here in chicago
37:28here they are doing studies not just on mice but also on humans
37:37and they seem to have found a way of making fasting a lot more palatable
37:45i'm here to meet dr christa verity who has been researching something that sounds easier
37:52alternate day fasting hello hi there hi very nice to meet you my nice to meet you my name is
37:58christa
37:59verity hello um so what you got here then so this is some of the components that we'd use in
38:05an
38:05alternate day fasting diet it basically involves a day of pretty heavy calorie restrictions for women
38:11about four to five hundred calories a day and for men about five to six hundred calories a day and
38:16that's actually just as one meal around lunch time we call that the fast day so the fast day isn't
38:23about
38:23total abstinence it's about meals that look like this what's great about alternate day fasting is what
38:31happens on the alternate days and then that's actually alternated with something we call the feed
38:36day which is where you can eat whatever you want absolutely whatever you want and so here's the pattern
38:42of alternate day fasting fast day feed day fast day feed day it certainly sounds easier than either
38:54prolonged fasting or the daily calorie restriction i looked at earlier but is it as effective
39:01well christa's currently doing a trial with overweight subjects which suggests it might be
39:08we saw is that alternate day fasting group actually lost a bit more weight so about five pounds more
39:14after the six month period and they actually saw some pretty nice decreases in ldl cholesterol as well
39:21as triglycerides so those are ldl cholesterol is the bad cholesterol and triglycerides basically higher
39:28amounts of that can lead to heart disease and age-related disease we also see really nice decreases in
39:35blood pressure over the course of the trials so again another key m heart disease risk factor
39:48in addition to so far rather limited human trials there's lots of evidence from animal studies that
39:55alternate day fasting adf is safe and effective i'm convinced enough to try it yesterday i fasted
40:05today i feed we will make it back easily enough oh magical mystery tour i like that yeah yeah it
40:13will um
40:42it's a very good choice
40:43green stuff so i'm smith i am surprised
40:51to be here i can't imagine you'd be sticking me on a sort of um you know a veggie diet
40:57or something
40:57like that yeah a lot of salads or something on the feed day no actually as long as you stick
41:02to your
41:02the uh the calorie goals on the fast day you can literally eat whatever you like on the feed day
41:08so
41:09one of christa's most recent studies compared two groups on adf
41:13one eating high fat the other low fat on their feed days i'm concerned about my blood glucose i'm
41:21concerned about my cholesterol i'm concerned about a load of stuff yeah yeah and are those not sort of
41:26made worse by eating high fat on me so that's actually what we thought would happen and then
41:31surprisingly we saw same decreases in ldl cholesterol so that's the bad cholesterol and in triglycerides and
41:38also in blood pressure so in terms of cardiovascular disease risk it didn't matter if you were eating
41:44high fat or low fat diet another big surprise was that after a day of fasting people rarely gorged
41:52themselves on their feed days so when we asked someone to consume 25 of their energy needs on the fast
42:00day
42:01we i just thought that when i started running these trials that people would eat 175 the next day but
42:06right from the get-go no matter what they cannot people just can't eat that 175 the next day most
42:13people eat around 110 so just a little just slightly over what they usually eat actually in essence you
42:19appear to be kind of slowing down the age you process the release of diseases associated you're cutting
42:23risks of diseases associated which is quite a profound thing to do yeah absolutely
42:33krista's research is still in the early stages but from what i've seen and experienced i am now
42:40starting to be won over by the idea that a simple pattern of feast and fast can be powerful it
42:49seems to
42:50have an impact which goes beyond simply eating less and i think it could work for someone like me
42:57so
43:02my final stop is baltimore i'm here because i need a final bit of motivation
43:12there's one aspect of aging i find more terrifying than any other the effects of aging on my brain
43:23i'm trying to catch up with professor mark mattson mark is a leading expert on the aging brain
43:31his research suggests that fasting may help delay the onset of diseases like alzheimer's
43:38dementia and memory loss very good how you doing hi there michael mosley mark mattson you work here yeah
43:46how about work here though nor do i work out here okay michael we need to put some booties on
43:57we're heading down into the basement of the national institute on aging
44:02yep hidden away down here there's a special mouse he's keen to show me a radial arm maze
44:17this mouse is exploring a maze
44:22it's a memory test designed to see how well he remembers where he has found food before
44:27it's kind of healthy doesn't it so the food's actually in there isn't it the food's in here
44:31the mice they study are destined to develop alzheimer's disease
44:37normally they succumb within a relatively short time
44:42but when these mice are put on a diet of feast days and fast days
44:46what mark calls intermittent energy restriction the results are incredible so that the animals on
44:53intermittent energy restriction they'll live much longer with normal at least as best we can test
44:59normal learning and memory before they start having problems so significantly longer yeah highly
45:05significantly we we found in one study six months to a year but that's the equivalent in a human
45:12of the difference between developing signs of alzheimer's at say the age of 50 and the age of 80
45:18yeah that is that right yeah so you on the other hand when the mice eat a fast food diet
45:23they go
45:24downhill much earlier we give them lots of sugary drinks high fat diet exactly and we put fructose in
45:31their drinking water and that has a dramatic effect in the animals will have an earlier onset of the
45:38learning and memory problems how much sooner um three to four months soon wow so that is the equivalent
45:46of them developing alzheimer's in their sort of 30s or maybe early 40s right so far they've only done
45:53studies in mice but they're about to carry out human trials how good is the evidence that if someone
45:58like me were to start on intermittent fasting uh it would cut my risk of brain diseases broadly
46:07i think for from the human standpoint it's uh if we go on a scale from
46:13poor to good to very good to excellent to outstanding it's in the very good to excellent range
46:21that's the way i would categorize it
46:28so what's going on
46:32well when they examined the brains of the fasting mice they found something extraordinary
46:39these green objects are newborn brain cells
46:47sporadic bouts of hunger actually trigger new neurons to grow
46:53why should a brain start to generate new nerve cells when you stop feeding it well if you think about
47:01this in evolutionary terms it makes sense if if you're hungry you better increase your
47:07your cognitive ability that will give you a survival advantage
47:10if you can remember where the location of the food is and so on
47:16it seems that fasting stresses your grain matter the way that exercise stresses your muscles
47:25so hunger really does make you sharper yes okay we think so
47:34mark's research is starting to point towards a simple conclusion
47:39alternate day fasting has better effects on the brain than does a lower amount of daily calorie
47:46restriction it's true of mice but he needs to do proper human trials to prove it's true in us
47:56i've come to the end of my search to find out how to eat fast and live longer
48:02the official advice is eat at least 2000 calories a day
48:07and if you really want to fast even on an intermittent basis see your doctor first
48:13because there are people it could harm such as pregnant women or those who are already underweight
48:20i'm going to be cautious and have decided to go with a pattern that mark recommended
48:26not alternate day fasting but a less extreme 5-2 diet five days normal eating followed by two days fasting
48:37each week it's my last day in the states and it has been absolutely eye-opening i had um no
48:44idea at
48:45all that there was so much research going on into fasting calorie restriction in all its forms and
48:51just sort of anti-aging research i've decided now that i am definitely going to try the 5-2 diet
48:59that's five days normal eating and then two days of 600 calories a day i really really hope it makes
49:06a difference because i'm conscious now that i am really at the foothills of what could be quite a
49:12steep advance into age and if there is something that could slow that aging process down and give me
49:18more years of healthy living then i would really embrace that
49:30i'm heading home to the uk
49:35i've decided to give myself five weeks to get used to my new diet and see if i get results
49:48this is going to be one of my fasting days and i've decided i'm going to eat breakfast as my
49:54main meal
49:55mark mattson told me he doesn't think it matters when you eat your calories on a fast day
50:01i've tried other things but it is really quite discouraging going into work when you're feeling hungry
50:08there's another reason i'm determined to try this regime
50:12when i arrived home i had another igf1 test annoyingly my levels were higher than ever
50:20turns out the hard one effects of the four-day fast only lasted a short while
50:27and she's kind of running with it at the moment i think so i hope this is something i can
50:32stick to
50:33good it's done it's actually 22 and uh i don't feel remotely hungry it is lunch time so if nothing
50:41else i think i'm going to go and prowl around
51:01i found that fasting when i'm busy at work was doable
51:06but the next big test is my holiday i'm walking with some friends we're doing a walk across the
51:13trans pennine way had breakfast this morning about two hours ago and i'm planning on um
51:25eating next breakfast tomorrow so far i am feeling quite good
51:34it's now about seven o'clock uh haven't eaten for about 12 hours the others are behind me in the
51:40pub
51:40eating uh so i decided to come outside for a bit because i'm not as strong-minded as i thought
51:49i was
51:50my stomach's beginning to rumble a bit but it's all right
51:58it's been five weeks since i started the 5-2 diet
52:03heel heel not very good dog i managed to fit in two 600 calorie fast days each week
52:10though they tended to be a bit scattered around but has it been enough to make a difference
52:17so today is results day i have lost i know some weight i'll find out the moment just how much
52:23but
52:23i'm mainly interested in the bloods because five six weeks ago they were pretty terrible i have very
52:30high blood glucose high cholesterol high igf and i really really came to see them improve because
52:37frankly if they haven't improved then i am in trouble and i do want to stay so young and healthy
52:44for
52:44my family for myself so i'm quite anxious because this matters an awful lot to me
52:54just to remind you this is what i look like at the start of this film
53:00and this is me today i've had to add a few new holes to my belt so i know that
53:07something has changed
53:08but by how much right the moment of truth in which i discovered just how much weight i have lost
53:14these
53:14special type of scales which are going to measure my weight accurately but also apparently my body fat
53:20hey that is fantastic that is 173.8 pounds which means i have lost well over a stone and my
53:31body fat when
53:32we did it before was 27 and now it's below 20. that is really really pleasing
53:45i feel good and my family say i look slimmer
53:50it really hasn't been that difficult and i'm delighted that i'm no longer in the overweight category
53:57but what i really want to know is what's changed inside my body
54:06professor luigi fontana is about to call with my final results hi michael hi luigi how are you i'm
54:15finding you i'd be good so we got your results just by fasting two days a week you you made
54:22a great
54:23impact on your on your cardiometabolic health and so i'm very proud of you but what's happened to my igf1
54:30is my body still in go-go mode igf1 is a major risk factor for for cancer breast cancer prostate
54:40cancer
54:40colon cancer both the three and a half day fasting and the five weeks intermittent fasting
54:47dropped your igf1 by 50 percent which is enough to reduce my risk of certain cancers
54:56but what about my blood sugar which was borderline diabetic your glucose dropped to 90 right fantastic so
55:05you know your glucose became normal again my final result is cholesterol so you had a reduction in
55:12total cholesterol and an increase in the good cholesterol this shows how little it takes you
55:20know you know to to improve without drugs you know without taking medications it wasn't that little
55:28an effort but i have cut my risk of developing diseases which could shorten my life thank you so i
55:35should
55:35live happily ever after should i i don't know if you're gonna leave uh happier but you know you have
55:41a lower risk of of developing diseases thank you very much luigi really thank you no i'm very very
55:48pleased very pleased indeed uh that was far better than i was expecting thank you i wanted my wife claire
55:56who is a gp to share my results so this is my igf which is kind of uh my cancer
56:04stroke aging risk this
56:06one's come down to half yes on the two-day yeah all of them yes have shown the improvement that
56:12you kind
56:13of hoped for yes that basically means you're not actually going to have to take tablets at all at the
56:18moment if you stick to it well you're looking good on it thank you no i have said that's really
56:26amazingly good news
56:32the results have been absolutely fantastic for me but that doesn't mean that intermittent fasting
56:39will work for everyone
56:43it's really important that they do more trials on humans to find out if in the long term it is
56:50safe and effective
56:54but having experienced intermittent fasting i plan to go on doing it
56:59it seems to have undone some of the damage that i have done to my body down the years
57:08it is very poignant looking at the photographs of myself and members of my family growing up and
57:13growing older but it doesn't make me want to hold back the hands of time i sort of think that
57:21we do
57:22grow old we should grow old and there's very little we can do about it but fasting is somehow different
57:27fasting is not about trying to live to 140 it's about staying healthy for as long as you can
57:35and with the sort of time bomb we're facing as a nation with obesity going up diabetes going up we
57:42desperately need something which can make a difference fasting is the first thing i have come across that
57:49i genuinely believe that if people were to take it up it could radically transform the nation's health
57:56so i hope that we continue to see massive research going into this territory
58:04doing this fasting has been one of the most interesting no i say the most interesting sort of
58:11journey film whatever you call it that i have been on and i've never said that before
58:24so
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