Fasting Benefits Your Heart

My mom sent me a text yesterday about a study out of the University of Utah. Apparently, according to this study, people who fast one day a month are 40 percent less likely to be diagnosed with clogged arteries than those who did not regularly fast.

Sounds like great news, especially if you are like me and fast 6 to 8 times per month.
Unfortunately, after looking over the study, I did a google search to see what the newswires were reporting and found some very disheartening news bytes.

According to an article I found on Yahoo News, when asked to comment on the study Dr. Raymond Gibbons of the MayoClinic (who was not involved in the study), stated "Fasting resets the metabolic rate".

Now I'm not sure what Dr. Gibbons meant by "resets", and he was probably speaking about long term chronic fasting,but the author of the article on Yahoo News added these words after Dr. Gibbons quote "slowing it down to adjust to less food and forcing the body to store calories as soon as people resume eating".

These words cannot be Dr. Gibbons. They just can't be. There is no way I can accept that a former heart association president would make such an incorrect statement, especially since it was in reference to a 24 hour fast.

This begs the question, why is the mainstream media so afraid to tell people to eat less? Why is it that when research on the benefit of brief periods of fasting comes out, people have to comment on the dangers of long term chronic fasting.

Instead of just explaining that as little as one 24 hour fast per month can reduce your chances of being diagnosed with clogged arteries, they have to start digging to find something,(completely unrelated to the study), so they can throw some negative comments into the fray.

If you've read Eat Stop Eat, you know that metabolism doesnot decrease during brief fasting. In fact, evidence suggests that it may even go UP!

I know it will be an up hill battle, but my goal is to make the use of brief periods of fasting a respected and established method of weight control...because it is easy and because it works.

Are you fasting today?

BP

EAT STOP EAT, its easy, its effective, and new research suggests it's good for your ticker!