A study in rats found that reducing calories and eating them in the same diet was the best way to live longer and stay healthy.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin have found that although eating a low-calorie diet is good for health, fasting and dieting are better.
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The study found that rodents in the fasting group reduced their calorie intake by 30 percent and lived eight months longer than those who lived on low calories.
The combination of fasting and diet improved insulin sensitivity and republished the metabolism to focus on using body fat as an energy source.
Leading researcher Professor Dudley Laming said the focus should be on foods or medications that focus on fasting, rather than calorie control, if it is to be a major motivator of health.
However, one expert pointed out that the results of the study were not applicable to humans due to the very large biological differences between humans and mice.
The researchers designed four different diets for mice, which were mainly followed by males.
One group ate whenever they wanted, while the second group ate “full amount”, but in the short term, provided a long daily fast without reducing calories.
The other two groups were given about 30% fewer calories, and one of them was able to consume all the calories in one serving so that her fast was longer every day, while the other group ate the same amount, but distributed in one day.
This study, published in Natural Metabolism, found that rats ate their daily calories for a short period of time and then fasted longer than the rats they ate when they wanted to.
Furthermore, rats that were fasting enjoyed the same benefits of calorie control with fasting, without reducing calories.
The liver of fasting mice also showed characteristics of healthy metabolism.
Meanwhile, mice that ate fewer calories without fasting showed some improvement in their blood sugar control, but they died about eight months younger than mice that ate less and fasted.
Professor Laming said that because rats alone reduced calories, overall health was poor and life expectancy was reduced.
“If fasting is the main motivator of health, we should consider fasting-responding medications or dietary interventions rather than low-calorie medications,” he added.
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Professor Sir Stephen O’Reilly, director of the Department of Metabolism at the Center for Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge, said the findings were interesting but “very difficult to differentiate between humans”.
Considering the differences in rat speed and human body function, a similar study in humans stated that “humans should eat all the calories they need for a week in one day and go hungry for the next 6 days.”
“Since rats live for about two years and now we live an average of 80 years, we will have to conduct more than 50 years of research to see if this massive change in our eating habits can actually help prolong human life,” Stephen added.
He noted that such a test was not feasible.
Source: Daily Mail
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