Curtailing calories on a schedule yields health benefits
Near-fasting for 5 days a month reduces body fat, study finds
Diet smarter, not longer.
Slashing your food intake for just five consecutive days a month can yield a bounty of health benefits, according to a new study led by researchers from the University of Southern California. This briefer approach to caloric restriction, a severe form of dieting, challenges previous research that dieters might need to tighten their belts as often as twice a week to see positive effects.
The team fed mice and humans a “fasting-mimicking diet,” a low-calorie, high-nutrition plan designed to trick cells into thinking they were fasting. The faux fasting periods lasted a few days and were followed by cycles of eating as much and as often as subjects wanted. The results appear online June 18 in Cell Metabolism.