Fasting can improve overall health, study finds

Washington DC: A recent study suggests that fasting can improve health and provide protection against diseases badociated with aging. According to research, fasting affects circadian clocks of the liver and skeletal muscles, forcing them to reorganize their metabolism, which can eventually improve health and protection against diseases badociated with aging. The study was recently published in Cell Reports.

The circadian clock works in the body and in its organs as an intrinsic timing mechanism to preserve homeostasis in response to the changing environment. And, although it is known that food influences the clocks of peripheral tissues, it was not clear until now how lack of food influences how the clock works and ultimately affects the body.

"We discovered that fasting had an influence on the circadian clock and on the fasting-induced cellular responses, which together contribute to the specific temporal gene regulation of fasting," said lead author Paolo Sbadone -Corsi. "Skeletal muscle, for example, seems to be twice as sensitive to fasting as the liver," Paolo said.

According to the researchers, fasting is able to reprogram a wide variety of cellular responses. Therefore, an optimal timed fast would be strategic to positively affect cellular functions and, ultimately, benefit the health and protect against diseases badociated with aging.