Nutrition is essential for supplying an organism with sufficient energy to maintain its bodily functions. Apart from serving as an energy supply, the immunomodulatory effects of diet are emerging as a central aspect of human health. The latest evidence suggests that dietary restriction may play an important regulatory role by influencing the activation and effector functions of immune cells.… Read More

Fasting potentials are the most interesting topics in the Nutritional Era. Fasting consists of the catabolism of lipids, proteins, and carbohydrates to maintain blood glucose levels in a normal range. The action mechanisms of fasting were firstly understood in minor organisms and later in humans. Nutritional interventions of caloric restriction could attenuate age-associated epigenetic… Read More

Calorie restriction is a primary dietary intervention demonstrated over many decades in cellular and animal models to modulate aging pathways, positively affect age-associated diseases, and, in clinical studies, to promote beneficial health outcomes. Because long-term compliance with daily calorie restriction has proven problematic in humans several intermittent fasting (IF) regimens,… Read More

Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is associated with chronic metabolic and inflammatory disorders. Normal weight, overweight, and obese people can all be overfat with visceral adipose tissue (VAT). In this case series, we describe the total body composition of three male patients with excess VAT after undergoing prolonged medically supervised water-only fasting followed by an exclusively whole-… Read More

Neural processing of visual food stimuli is perturbated at extremes of weight. Human fMRI studies investigating diet effects on neural processing of food cues could aid in understanding altered brain activation in conditions of under- and overnutrition. In this preliminary study, we examined brain activity changes in response to 10 days of high-calorie-diet (HCD), followed by 10 days of… Read More

Almost 40% of the adult population in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Diet is a modifiable factor which is known to affect cancer risk and recurrence. Yet, little is known about how diet influences cancer treatment outcomes. Intermittent fasting, characterized by periods of abstaining from foods and beverages alternated with periods of ad libitum intake, when… Read More

The popularity of fasting and restricted food intake is increasing. While the body's adaptability to dietary insufficiency is crucial for health, molecular mechanisms of adaptive changes are not well understood. Here, we compared the effects of fasting and exercise on the expression of leukocyte genes and proteins involved in the storage, export, and acquisition of iron, an essential… Read More

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The goal of this review was to provide an update on the literature examining how voluntary, temporary abstention from eating impacts cognitive function. RECENT FINDINGS: We evaluated peer-reviewed articles published between August 2013 and January 2021 that assessed adults, included a measure of cognitive functioning with neutral stimuli, and compared individuals in a fasted… Read More

We found that periodic fasting increases the anti-cancer activity of endocrine agents used to treat hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and delays acquired resistance to them by reducing blood leptin, insulin and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). Our work supports further clinical studies of fasting as an adjuvant to endocrine agents in breast cancer… Read More

Chronic caloric restriction (CR) has powerful anticarcinogenic actions in both preclinical and clinical studies but may be difficult to sustain. As an alternative to CR, there has been growing interest in intermittent fasting (IF) in both the scientific and lay community as a result of promising study results, mainly in experimental animal models. According to a survey by the International… Read More