Power hungry Experts digest benefits of PM's weekly 36-hour fasts

The prospect of getting through Monday while missing out on breakfast, lunch and dinner is enough to make most people  weep.

- Nicola Davis

But not Rishi Sunak, who does this every week while also running the country - and experts say it might bring benefits.

A source close to the prime minister told the Sunday Times that Sunak undertook a 36-hour fast at the start of every week, consuming only water, tea or black coffee from 5pm on a Sunday to 5am on Tuesday.

That might sound like the type of extreme regime championed by Silicon Valley's tech-bros, but Adam Collins, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Surrey, said Sunak's approach was, essentially, a more stringent version of the popular 5:2 diet, in which people restrict themselves to 500-600 calories twice a week.

However, James Betts, professor of metabolic physiology at the University of Bath, stressed that a restricted calorie diet did not put the body into a fasted state, unlike Sunak's 36-hour approach.