In episode 60, I have a fascinating conversation with Victoria Hahn, MS, RDN, about prolonged fasting with the Fasting Mimicking Diet ®
Victoria is the Nutrition Science Liaison for L-Nutra, the leaders in the field of nutrition related to longevity and health-span.
L-Nutra develops nutri-technologies that mimic the effects of fasting, to enhance the body’s natural ability to rejuvenate itself and promote longevity.
Victoria is a Registered Dietitian and Nutrition Science Liaison with a Master of Science in Nutrition, Health-span, and Longevity from the University of Southern California.
She also functions as an inpatient clinical dietitian and has a background in nutrition research covering a wide range of topics including nutritional sufficiency in specific populations and the ketogenic diet. She has a passion for research and evidence-based practice.
Fasting has become a popular lifestyle-hack that has been proven to provide some impressive physical changes that have a direct impact on extending health span as well as a lot of promise when it comes to the future treatment of many of the diseases that we associate with aging.
Valter Longo PhDI’ve been fascinated with the concept of prolonged fasting ever since I first heard doctor Valter Longo PhD interviewed on Rhonda Patricks foundmyfitness podcast way back in august of 2018.
If you’ve never heard of Dr. Longo, trust me, you will. He is one of, if not the, foremost researchers on anti-aging in the world.
He has focused many years of research on prolonged fasting. Dr. Longo’s research, along with many other’s, has shown that prolonged fasting instigates rejuvenating changes that can affect every cell in your body.
Dr. Longo developed the Fasting Mimicking Diet ® as a means to make the many benefits of prolonged fasting accessible to most everybody.
IN THIS IN-DEPTH PODCAST, VICTORIA HAHN MS, RDN ANSWERS THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FASTING MIMICKING DIET ® :
• What is prolonged fasting and how is it different than time-restricted eating?
• Who is Valter Longo, PhD and how has he been involved with prolonged fasting research?
• Why did he develop the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Is prolonged fasting with the Fasting Mimicking Diet® safe for everybody?
• What is in the ProLon Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• What happens to your body when you fast with the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Does my body go into ketogenesis on the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Are there any potential problems with trying to create your own Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• How does one prepare for a fast using the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Can I exercise while on the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Can I resume eating normally when the fast is over®?
• Can I continue to take my usual supplements during the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• What should I do if I am still hungry during the fast?
• What kind of support does L-Nutra provide for people fasting with the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Do you have any tips to help improve the Fasting Mimicking Diet® fasting experience?
• Where can people find out more about prolonged fasting with the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
• Do you have any final words you’d like to share for people who are considering doing a 5-day fast with the Fasting Mimicking Diet®?
Hello and welcome to health bites!
HEALTH BITES is a short podcast meant to provide you with some basic understanding of the often-times complex concepts that are central to the many biological processes responsible for extending our health span.
Today, I want to share with you the awe and mystery of autophagy.
Autophagy plays a leading role in many of the life-hacks that have a major impact on your health-span.
We touched a bit on it back when I talked about zombie cells.
Mechanism of cellular authophagy, illustration for Nobel Prize Award in Medicine 2016. 3D illustration showing fusion of lysosome with autophagosome containing microbes and moleculesAutophagy literally means self-eating and that is exactly what happens to cells when they are in the state of autophagy. They literally consume all the junk protein by-products from everyday metabolism along with other pieces of cellular components that accumulate within the cells. Your body then breaks it down and re-uses the basic components for other cellular processes.
This process is related to apoptosis, where cells commit suicide and die. In the great scheme of things autophagy is a cells 1st line of defense when it is damaged and becoming non-functional. If autophagy fails to get the cell back to functionality, then they throw in the towel and commit hari-cari, through the process of apoptosis. That’s a good thing because it triggers your body to produce new cells to replace them.
There are several types of autophagy. The differences are in the type of cell that the autophagy occurs and what triggers it within those cells. For those of us interested in health-span we are more interested in two forms of autophagy.
One is mitophagy. This occurs when your mitochondria, the little engines of our cells, go through the process of autophagy. This results in our mitochondria becoming more efficient, much like a tune-up for your car. It enables our metabolism to run more efficiently without causing oxidative stress on our bodies. Mitophagy also causes our body to create new mitochondria so it’s like throwing a new engine into that car of yours. That’s a good thing. If mitophagy is diminished by age or other processes than it could lead to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s’ disease and kidney disease.
The other prominent anti-aging autophagy is called Xenophagy. This is how the cells of your immune system remembers threats from foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.
Autophagy is a vital function for maintaining our health. So how do we help our bodies to increase our level of autophagy?
Autophagy is typically triggered when our bodies are in stress. This can often come from external stresses such as changes in our environment such as the heat stress produced by sitting in a hot sauna or from exercise.
Exercise has been shown to effectively trigger autophagy in the brain, and with the liver, pancreas, adipose tissues and muscles. This is one of the reasons why exercise is so effective at increasing health-span as well as helping to protect us against chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and neuro-degenerative diseases.
Fasting also triggers autophagy in our entire body. Particularly with prolonged fasting of 3 days or more. Dr. Valter Longo, out of USC, has found that prolonged fasting with the fasting mimicking diet, will substantially increase autophagy throughout your entire body.
The beauty of the fasting mimicking diet is that it provides the health and anti-aging benefits of a traditional 5 -day water fast while it prevents the extreme hunger cravings, along with other potential health risks.