Preferential decreases of visceral fat & prioritization of muscle maintenance when prolonged fasting | Valter Longo
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Muscle mass plays an essential role in athletic performance, physical stability, and longevity. Diets of all types can result in the loss of fat and water, but also lean muscle mass. The fasting-mimicking diet decreases visceral fat and researchers suspect that the fat-burning mode continues for some time after fasting has stopped. Upon refeeding, muscle mass is rebuilt and contributes to an overall increase in percentage of lean body mass. In this clip, Dr. Valter Longo discusses how the fasting-mimicking diet is one of the few dietary interventions that can increase relative lean body mass.
Rhonda: For me I would almost think that you'd have the opposite effect that these yo-yo diets that people are claiming lower your metabolism, I would think because you're spending five days in more of a fasting state, or a fasting-mimicking state, that you are becoming more metabolically flexible because you're switching to being able to oxidize fatty acids and then...so you're being able to kind of switch between carbohydrate, you know, using glucose as the main source of energy and using fatty acids...
Valter: Not only switch, but what we suspect is happening...in mice we've shown that per month, if you take mice and you put it on a fasting-mimicking diet, they of course have less calories during the five days, the four days in the case of mice, but then their metabolism seems to be speed up to the point that per month they eat the same calories. So they over-eat everything they under-ate during the four days, right?
Rhonda: Okay.
Valter: So they eat exactly the same, but they lose a lot of weight. So we suspect that what's happening is that fat-burning mode keeps them going. So they never quite...I mean, they probably get back to a relatively normal metabolism, but not quite the same. So they keep burning fat a little bit, to the point...I mean, we're investigating this now at the molecular level, but that's where we suspect that...
And of course people we saw the abdominal fat loss and we saw the weight loss, and so we suspect that the same is happening.
Another interesting thing which makes a lot of sense, we didn't think about it too much at the beginning, but the muscle is...So almost every diet, including calorie restriction, you lose fat, water, and muscle. Right? And almost every diet is the same way. And in this case it's really interesting because you now temporarily lose muscle, and of course you lose abdominal fat because after a few days this becomes your reservoir. I mean, all the...it doesn't touch subcutaneous fat for some reason, and only goes to the main depot, the visceral fat. So that's great news.
But the muscle is also decreased. But then, when you refeed, the muscle is rebuilt. I mean, we have evidence for regeneration in mice, we don't know yet in humans. But certainly the people go back to their normal muscle mass.
So now you have a specific effect on visceral fat, no effect on subcutaneous fat, and no or very little effect on even absolute lean body mass. In fact the relative lean body mass goes up. Right?
Rhonda: Yeah, because in your study the lean body mass...
Valter: Relative goes up. Absolute, either in one arm wasn't affected, in one arm was just slightly decreased. So, good news because it's probably one of the very few methods to maintain normal lean body mass while losing fat.
Rhonda: And that's very important to a lot of people. I mean, you don't want to lose muscle mass. Muscle mass is also very important for longevity.
The practice of long-term restriction of dietary intake, typically characterized by a 20 to 50 percent reduction in energy intake below habitual levels. Caloric restriction has been shown to extend lifespan and delay the onset of age-related chronic diseases in a variety of species, including rats, mice, fish, flies, worms, and yeast.
A diet that mimics the effects of fasting on markers associated with the stress resistance induced by prolonged fasting, including low levels of glucose and IGF-1, and high levels of ketone bodies and IGFBP-1. More importantly, evidence suggests these changes in the cellular milieu are associated with a sensitization of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic drugs while simultaneously also conferring greater stress resistance to healthy cells.[1] Evidence also continues to emerge that properties of the fasting-mimicking diet, particularly its ability to cause immune cell turnover, may also make it useful in the amelioration of auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis.[2]
Fasting-Mimicking Diet Breakdown
- Day 1 - consists of 1,090 total calories (10% protein, 55% fat and 34% carbohydrate)
- Days 2 through 5 - consists of 725 total calories (9% protein, 44% fat and 47% carbohydrate)
[1] Cheng, Chia-Wei, et al. "Prolonged fasting reduces IGF-1/PKA to promote hematopoietic-stem-cell-based regeneration and reverse immunosuppression." Cell Stem Cell 14.6 (2014): 810-823. [2] Choi, In Young, et al. "A diet mimicking fasting promotes regeneration and reduces autoimmunity and multiple sclerosis symptoms." Cell Reports 15.10 (2016): 2136-2146.
A molecule composed of carboxylic acid with a long hydrocarbon chain that is either saturated or unsaturated. Fatty acids are important components of cell membranes and are key sources of fuel because they yield large quantities of ATP when metabolized. Most cells can use either glucose or fatty acids for this purpose.
An essential mineral present in many foods. Iron participates in many physiological functions and is a critical component of hemoglobin. Iron deficiency can cause anemia, fatigue, shortness of breath, and heart arrhythmias.
The thousands of biochemical processes that run all of the various cellular processes that produce energy. Since energy generation is so fundamental to all other processes, in some cases the word metabolism may refer more broadly to the sum of all chemical reactions in the cell.
An antibody that plays key roles in immunity. Secretory IgA is the most abundant antibody in the mucosal immune system, accounting for nearly 20 percent of serum immunoglobulin. It is crucial in protecting the intestinal epithelium from toxins and pathogenic microorganisms.
The highest level of intake of a given nutrient likely to pose no adverse health effects for nearly all healthy people. As intake increases above the upper intake level, the risk of adverse effects increases.
An excess of visceral fat, also known as central obesity or abdominal obesity. Visceral fat, in contrast to subcutaneous fat, plays a special role involved in the interrelationship between obesity and systemic inflammation through its secretion of adipokines, which are cytokines (including inflammatory cytokines) that are secreted by adipose tissue. The accumulation of visceral fat is linked to type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, inflammatory diseases, certain types of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other obesity-related diseases.[1]
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