Health matters: Fasting risks vs benefits

Research pointing to the health benefits of fasting has yielded conflicting results — what is your stance on this and if positive, what are the benefits?

The research on fasting shows a very clear result. Fasting has a lot of benefits compared to the risks. In additional to that you will find in almost every culture and religion, the recommendation of fasting to clear the mind. But also the latest research in physiology and health show that fasting has an influence on the life span, on health in general, it reduces the risk of cancer, it reduces the risk of most of our civilisatoric diseases like diabetes or rheumatic diseases, and of course, it also has an influence on weight and helps to protect and treat obesity.

Those who vent out the risk of fasting do not really understand the physiology behind fasting. Of course, if you overdo it and if you turn it into an extreme situation, it has the risk that you could die, because of not having any energy taken into the body. But in that situation there are other problems like psychological or metabolic problems in the background.

Also, we have to clarify what kind of fasting do we mean and to whom we would recommend it. If a healthy person is not eating for a day, it is absolutely okay. That is a form of fasting for healthy persons in different circumstances. If we recommend fasting as a treatment for different diseases, it has to be done under medical supervision and in that case it is a totally different aspect. It is a therapy for a certain amount of time, absolutely individualised with the aim to treat the disease. For that aspect, you need specific trained medical doctors, and this is what we do at Vivamayr. We use fasting as a treatment to get rid of different complaints and diseases. Of course, it also has a preventive effect.