Fast Track To Health

It generates major buzz. But does the research on intermittent fasting stack up, or is it simply starvation rebranded? Read on...

- Caroline Williams

We suspect you first heard about fasting from that one friend who never fails to jump on the latest health trend just before it hits peak take-up, no doubt over a late Japenese fusion dinner where she eschewed food in favour of regaling you with the science behind eating intermittently. She’s done the 5:2, tried the 16:8 (“it’s the same science, just easier to follow!”) and is currently evangelising about the five-days-every-three months fasting mimicking diet. Yep, we’ve been there!

Since 5:2 came into our lives in 2012, intermittent fasting – the concept of shunning kilojoules for hours or days at a time – has been touted as a magical way to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, while melting belly fat and offering your digestive system a reboot. The premises of the 5:2 (cutting back to 2100kJ two days a week) and the 16:8 (eating all your day’s food within an eight-hour window) are basically the same. When you give your body a break from eating, it begins feeding off your fat reserves.

Another iteration, the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) – which first hit headlines in 2015 but is now garnering mainstream interest as fasting rises in popularity – is a five day program based on the research of Dr Valter Longo, a biologist at the University of Southern California. It’s designed to make your body think all it’s being fed is water, while keeping actual starvation at bay via a kilojoule-controlled, scientifically developed diet. But it doesn’t come cheap: it costs $400 to buy the five-day kit devised by Dr Longo and sold as ProLon in the US.