Scientists Are Starting to Unravel How Fasting Affects the Gut

Fasting’s effects connected our assemblage mightiness beryllium much analyzable than we thought. New probe successful mice suggests that fasting tin velocity up the healing of intestinal stem cells, but perchance marque them much susceptible to becoming cancerous. The findings could assistance america optimize fashionable diets similar intermittent fasting, the researchers say.

Scientists astatine MIT led the caller research, published Wednesday successful the diary Nature. In a erstwhile study, they recovered that fasting tin summation the regenerative quality of intestinal stem cells, but present they’ve zeroed successful connected however this process seems to work.

The researchers studied the gut stem cells of 3 antithetic groups of mice: a power radical that ate arsenic usual, mice that were kept connected a accelerated for 24 hours, and mice that were connected a accelerated and past allowed to devour to their heart’s contented for the adjacent 24 hours. This time, they noticed that the regeneration of these intestinal stem cells was really suppressed during the enactment of fasting itself, but would past ramp up erstwhile the mice began to devour again.

“The large uncovering of our existent survey is that refeeding aft fasting is simply a chiseled authorities from fasting itself. Post-fasting refeeding augments the quality of intestinal stem cells to, for example, repair the intestine aft injury,” survey researchers Omer Yilmaz, Shinya Imada, and Saleh Khawaled told Gizmodo successful an email.

While this boost successful regeneration mightiness let our gut cells to heal faster, the researchers besides recovered that it could travel with a terms nether the incorrect circumstances. When the researchers induced cancer-linked mutations successful these stem cells during the refeeding phase, the cells were importantly much apt to origin the enactment of precancerous polyps than they were during the fasting phase.

The authors rapidly noted that the real-world effects of fasting successful humans are overmuch much analyzable than what we tin spot successful laboratory mice. So overmuch much probe is needed to cognize if the aforesaid changes—good and bad—can beryllium seen successful people’s gut stem cells earlier and aft a fast.

“As biologic pathways are highly analyzable and interconnected, the main instrumentality location connection of our existent survey is that cautious studies should beryllium done to trial the effects of immoderate dietary involution connected the quality body,” the researchers said.

But the lessons gained present could surely amended pass our knowing of fasting. The researchers recovered that the fasting mice produced tons of polyamines, integrated compounds that play a relation successful helping cells grow, divide, and crook into different cells, for instance. So they’re present readying to trial whether polyamine supplements tin beryllium utilized to easy mimic fasting successful aboriginal studies. And they anticipation that these studies volition assistance america marque the astir of fasting.

“While intermittent fasting is simply a precise fashionable fare utilized by millions of humans astir the satellite and has been shown to person immense benefits successful aggregate diseases, cautious dissection of the publication of each of the fasting phases (fasting vs post-fast refeeding) volition springiness america a greater knowing of however to program specified dietary interventions to maximize regeneration portion avoiding accrued hazard of different diseases specified arsenic cancer,” the researchers said.