Podcast #38: Shocking Health Benefits of Fasting
Introduction: Hi and welcome to Excel Radio. This is your host and high performance expert, Dr. Nick Zyrowski. In this episode, I’m going to be speaking on topic of fasting. Fasting is an incredible healing tool that has been used for 100s of years in order to get sick people well. Now, when we talk about fasting, there’s many different types of fasts that you can do, so we’re going to talk about some of the major types of fast that are out there for your disposal. And we’re also going to be talking about the six major benefits that your body receives from fasting.
Dr. Z: Hi it’s Dr. Zyrowski, and we are here for another episode of Excel Radio. I am here today with the lovely, gorgeous Ashleigh.
Ashleigh: Oh, you’re too sweet. He’s laying it on real thick right now.
Dr. Z: So, in this episode, we are going to talk about a topic I really enjoy, actually it’s something that I use in my life. I’ve been utilizing this technique for quite some time in order help my overall health and help my overall performance. I also use this with patients, as well.
So, the topic of today is going to be the topic of fasting. What fasting is, is a method to help heal your body. So, the word fast, let’s talk about what this means.
Ashleigh: Okay, yeah.
Dr. Z: So fast means to be firmly fixed to, to be steadfast or constant. And so, when someone is doing a fast, it serves many, many purposes. We’re going to go over that in this show. There are many benefits to fasting. And, you know, really, throughout history, even, you know, beyond humans, when you start looking at animals, animals use fasting, but humans, throughout history have also used fasting, as well.
As a matter of fact, it’s really built into our genetics to fast, on somewhat of a regular basis. Now, if you think about animals, for instance, animals in the wild, when they get hurt, one of the things that they do is they don’t eat. So they’re wounded, or they’re sick; they don’t eat. It’s a method that they use in order to get themselves well.
Ashleigh: That’s interesting.
Dr. Z: And so, when they’re not eating, their body is able to heal and repair much faster, much more efficiently. Well animals also, pretty much just because of – they live in the wild and they don’t have food available to them year-round, for the most part. So for instance, if you think of a deer, they’re going to eat like kings and queens all summer long with eating corn and grass and beans and whatever else they’re going to eat, and then throughout the winter they really don’t have these things available to them. So there could be two feet of snow and they really just don’t have a whole lot to eat so they go into this hibernation mode.
So it’s built into their system, and with humans, as well, it’s built into our systems. And if you think about, you know, the times where our ancestors were out in the fields working, you know, they had a lot of food during the summer time, right? But during the winter they pretty much had the food that they had from the summer, and in some cases they might have had a poor crop and the winter food might not have been that good.
So, fasting has always really just been part of history. But now today – in today’s modern society, we just have so much food available to us.
Ashleigh: All over, yeah it’s – and a variety of it, too.
Dr. Z: Right, our ancestors didn’t have the Kroeger’s and the Walmarts and everything else to just go and get food whenever they wanted to. So this was something that, for them, they had to fast, it was a way of survival. But, today, people just constantly graze, pretty much, because they have food available to them all the time.
Ashleigh: Six to eight meals a day, you know, some diets recommend.
Dr. Z: Right, if you think about it, a lot of people will probably go, on average, maybe like three hours without maybe having something to eat. It’s a very short period of time. And so, and most people, like I said, if they’re sitting at a desk, we work with a lot of working professionals here at New Vision Excel. I mean, I know a lot of people are just grazing all day with little snacks in the drawers of their desks.
Let’s talk about the different types of fasting. So there’s a lot of different types of fasting out there, and when we think of fasting – I’m trying to think of what might be the most common one that people might think of – and I really think that probably a juice fast is one of the most popular ones that I’ve heard of people doing. People who are maybe just trying to start becoming more healthy, they’ll do a juice fast.
Ashleigh: Right, I would say so too, but, not everybody is doing it right. I mean, juice fast doesn’t mean going and buying orange juice from the store and then drinking it.
Dr. Z: Yeah this isn’t like drinking Sunny D for three days straight. Anyway, so let’s go through these different types of fasts, pretty quick, and then we’ll get into the benefits of fasting, because that’s really what we want to put our focus in on this episode are the benefits of fasting.
So, one type of fast is a water fast. In a water fast, you just strictly drink water – that’s it.
Ashleigh: Oh!
Dr. Z: Exactly, right? That sounds tough.
Ashleigh: That sounds hard, yeah.
Dr. Z: So you would just strictly drink water. And a water fast would go on for – a lot of times when people are doing water fasts they’re doing it with a clinician. And, by the way, I wouldn’t even suggest that you do a water fast without actually have a doctor monitoring it. It’s just one of those…
Ashleigh: Good to know.
Dr. Z: … yeah, it’s one of those fasts that is more challenging to do. You have to make sure we’re balancing electrolytes. There’s more working pieces when doing a water fast.
Ashleigh: Right, you have to do a lot of preparation to you body beforehand, right?
Dr. Z: Right, right, exactly. And then, the one type of fast is water fast. The second type of fast that I want to mention is bone broth fast. Bone broth fast is where you take some good grass fed beef bones and you put it in a pot and you put some different seasonings and spices in there, you boil the bones and you get all that collagen and the minerals and amino acids from the bones – it leaches out of the bones as it boils and then you consume that bone broth.
Ashleigh: Like a superfood at that point, right?
Dr. Z: Yeah, exactly. It is certainly like a superfood. So, that’s a bone broth fast, and you would consume bone broth for several days in a row.
Ashleigh: What about water with that fast? Can you drink water, too?
Dr. Z: Oh yeah, with bone broth fast you can drink water and bone broth. And so, that’s how bone broth fast would be done where you’re just strictly drinking water and the bone broth. And so, the one fast that I already mentioned which we thought was probably the most popular one that was out there is a juice fast. And with a juice fast, what you’ll be doing is getting just good quality, whole food or organic greens. You can get those at pretty much any general – I mean Kroger even has a good organic section anymore. So, you can get good organic fruits and vegetables pretty much at any grocery store. And so you would take those good, organic fruits and vegetables, you would juice them, and you would drink the juice from that. And you would do that for several days in a row. So that would be a juice fast.
Ashleigh: Okay, so why wouldn’t you want to buy pre-made juices then?
Dr. Z: Right, well pre-made juices, they’re going to be pasteurized, they’re going to have preservatives in them. They’re going to also probably be from not very good sources. So I would highly suggest, if you were going to do a juice fast, you were just juicing it yourself. You know what’s going into it. It’s not a guessing game to try to figure out whether or not it has different preservatives. Just go ahead and juice yourself. It just makes things easier. You know, when you made it, you know what’s in it. That’s really what it comes down to.
Ashleigh: A lot of vitamins and minerals in that fast.
Dr. Z: Yeah, exactly. Not that one sounds great. I’ve personally never actually done a juice fast and it’s something I’m certainly interested in, in the future here.
And then, the last type of fasting I’ll mention is intermittent fasting. And what intermittent fasting is – and it’s something that is done by quite a few people, actually, intermittent fasting is quite popular – what it is, is where you eat all your meals within an eight hour period. Now, intermittent fasting can be done in many different ways. So, in general, you’ll just eat your meals within an eight hour period and you’ll fast the other 16 hours of the day. It’s fairly simple to do. It’s actually really easy. And, anybody can do this. There are periods where I was actually intermittent fasting for, you know, six months in a row, and then sometimes I’ll just take a break from it. But, for the most part anybody can benefit from intermittent fasting. And, like I said, it’s fairly easy.
I think it’s important when you’re intermittent fasting, though, to make sure you are eating a good quality diet. So, not eating like – let’s say the standard American diet, so you want to make sure you’re eating good quality goods because during that time, where you’re fasting, your body is going to need the nutrients from the high quality food and you’ll be able to hold out through that 16 hours, so that fasting period, much better.
Ashleigh: What’s a good way to do intermittent fasting? To skip breakfast?
Dr. Z: I think probably the easiest way to do intermittent fasting and make it just as streamlined as possible, is, try to have an early dinner. So, let’s say you eat dinner at 6 at night, 5:30 at night. And then, the next morning, you don’t eat your first meal until 11 or 12 o’clock. It’s very simple, yeah. It’s very simple. So, it’s a good form of fasting and it’s very simple to do. Actually, you can go on our website and…
Ashleigh: Yeah, NewVisionExcel.com – I think he’s written about three different articles on intermittent fasting…
Dr. Z: Right.
Ashleigh: … the how to, the why, and then some pro tips, as well. So just search for intermittent fasting at NewVisionExcel.com and we’ll post that in the show notes, as well.
Dr. Z: Yeah, so go ahead and check that out. And, actually, while we’re on this topic, do you want to mention some of the latest articles that we’ve put out as of recently.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Absolutely. So, while you head over to New Vision Excel, if you click on that blog tab up in the upper right corner, you’ll see some of our new, recent articles. He just posted one about heart rate variability and why it’s important to monitor the variability of your heart, and what your heart rate is telling you about your health. So, some really interesting technology is out there right now, and it’s definitely something you want to pay attention to, especially when you’re looking up how to perform better and about longevity.
Another article that he recently put out is about stress and what stress is doing to our bodies. So, Does Stress Destroy Your Body? is one of his most recent ones.
And one that I’m coming out with real soon here is about how to prepare meals in a busy lifestyle. So, we live a very face paced type of life. Both of us are working professionals with two kids, and how we make sure that we have home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day, and how to make that possible in your busy schedule.
So, definitely check those out.
Dr. Z: Absolutely. Yeah, they’re great. You can go on the website, it’s all free. You can go browse that. Like I said, you can go learn about intermittent fasting, front to back, and you’re not going to have to pay somebody to do it. It’s all straight from somebody who’s done it for years. I’ve done this for years and years and, like I said, there is periods where I’ve done it six months in a row and then taken a break. Sometimes I’ll do it a month on, a month off. Really, it’s just whatever works out. I’m someone who likes to change things up a bit. There’s a lot of different ways you can increase your health. That’s just one of the tools in the tool belt, you know?
And so…
Ashleigh: As is fasting.
Dr. Z: … as is fasting. And while we’re talking about that again, let’s jump into the benefits of fasting, okay? So, the first benefit of fasting that we’re going to talk about is that fasting helps improve your metabolism. So, fasting helps energize your metabolism, and helps you burn calories much more efficiently. And so, one of the ways it’s going to help energize your metabolism is because you’re literally giving your metabolism and your digestive system a break. And so, when your metabolism is low and your digestive system isn’t working as well, you’re just not able to break down fats as well, or break down proteins as well, and things just don’t function like they’re supposed to.
And so, when you do a fast, it’s almost like a reset, and it gives your metabolism a chance energize. It gives your metabolism a chance to reset. And then, really balance out. So when you come off that fast your metabolism is just working so much more efficiently.
Another thing that is really good about fasting is that – and it goes right along with improving your metabolism – is that when you fast, you’re going to burn more fat.
Ashleigh: Everybody wants to burn fat.
Dr. Z: Yeah, who doesn’t want to burn fat, right? So, in a fasted state, your body is going to switch to ketones for energy, ketones being the fat on your body. So we’re looking at the fat around the waist – the fat that everybody wants to get rid of – that fat your body is going to start burning for energy. Now your body can’t burn fat for energy until the sugar stores are gone. Now, please understand that most people, because they consume so many carbohydrates and sugars, that they really never burn through those sugar stores. So they actually never get to the fat. They actually never get to the fat to burn it, because they are just simply burning sugar and carbohydrates all the time. And so, in that fasted state, your body is going to start shredding through that fat storage, because that’s what it’s going to use for energy. And, your body actually is much more efficient while it’s burning fat. And so, the fat on our bodies is designed to be the prime energy source, or fuel, to fuel your body. Like I said, because people have so much sugar, they’re always just burning that sugar and that’s considered a dirty energy for your body. So you want to burn clean energy for your body and that would be burning fat. And this should give you much more energy. They say people who are fat burning – and I can say that this is accurate, just through my experience just through working with my patients and doing this sort of thing with myself – is when you’re burning fat for energy, you’re able to not find yourself crashing throughout the day. You’re not going to find yourself crashing throughout the day.
Ashleigh: Absolutely. And cravings, and things like that.
Dr. Z: Right, exactly. You get those cravings for sugar and carbohydrates throughout the day where you just will eat anything.
Ashleigh: Right, that doesn’t happen when you’re on a fast.
Dr. Z: Right, that doesn’t happen because your blood sugar isn’t crashing. Your blood sugar isn’t going to crash if you’re burning fat. If you’re burning sugar, as soon as those sugar stores are gone, blood sugar crashes, you want to just eat anything in sight. It’s a vicious cycle.
So, anyway, you’ll burn more fat, and so you’ll see – when you’re fasting you’ll see that fat around the mid section and areas that you’ve been trying to lose it, you’ll see some of that start disappearing.
Now, lastly, when we talk about metabolism and burning fat and working more efficiently – the body working more efficiently – fasting really helps to increase insulin sensitivity. So, what that means is that your body is able to take up sugar into the cell much more efficiently. When you look at diabetics, for instance, they actually lose their insulin sensitivity. The diabetics, they lose the ability to properly use and manage insulin, and so increasing your insulin sensitivity is always a really positive thing here. So doing fast actually does that. When we’re able to get sugar into the cell much more efficiently, that means the body is working more efficiently.
Ashleigh: Awesome. Awesome. So definitely fast helps to boost your metabolism. Everybody over the age of 40 is always complaining about your metabolism slowing down, well this is a good jumpstart to help speed that metabolism back up.
Dr. Z: And here’s the deal, I recently just came off of a fast.
Ashleigh: As did I.
Dr. Z: You recently just came off of a fast. So, we both just came off of a fast as of recently. We both did totally different fasts. I actually did a bone broth fast and Ashley, you used a product from a company.
Ashleigh: Yeah, it was a three day fast, as well. We both did a three-day fast. And, you know, I can speak that it’s very accurate about boosting metabolism. It’s been awhile since I’ve done a fast – I haven’t done a fast since before my last child was born – so it’s been a little bit. And I assumed that as soon as I quit my fast the weight I would find it back. I lost about six pounds during my fast and, actually, now that I haven’t been fasting for about – it’s been about five days since our fast ended – I’ve actually lost another pound since I’ve started eating. So my metabolism is still burning. I’m still burning fat for energy, and I’m still finding that I’m losing weight, even post fast. So I’m really happy about that.
Dr. Z: Okay, so let’s jump into the next topic. The next benefit is it increasing brain function. Okay, so who doesn’t want this, once again. So fasting has been shown to improve brain function, and the reason for this is because it boosts the production a protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor. So BDNF, and so, BDNF activates stem cells to convert them into new neurons. And it triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health. Now, this protein that is activated through fasting, what it does, is it also protects us from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This is important, because it’s estimated that 5.1 million Americans have Alzheimer’s Disease. And it is a really big problem. And it’s also estimate that more than 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s Disease.
Ashleigh: That’s terrible.
Dr. Z: Right, these are – this is terrible. And a lot of those affected being men, when it comes to Parkinson’s. You know, when you are doing a fast it really helps to increase the brain function, and I have to say, just coming off of a fast, I feel like my brain is working so much more efficiently.
Ashleigh: No more brain fog.
Dr. Z: Yeah, it’s unbelievable because a lot of times it is one of those things where you don’t’ what you don’t know, and you don’t know how inefficient your brain is actually working until it is working efficiently. So, I have to say that, coming off of a fast, my brain is just totally changed. And I even feel like – and when your brain is changed like that, and the chemicals in your brain, it changes everything. It changes I feel like I’ve been in a lot better mood, and so…
Ashleigh: Your outlook, and just everything in general.
Dr. Z: Yeah, so I feel like it’s a big deal.
Ashleigh: And then even longevity with your brain, to prevent these sorts of diseases. I mean, that’s just incredible.
Dr. Z: Yeah, exactly.
Ashleigh: All from just taking a little bit of self discipline for just a few days, to make a difference. So that’s just incredible.
Dr. Z: Right. Now the next topic is that fasting helps heal your digestive tract. So this is a big one. When you’re fasting, it allows your digestive tract to balance and heal. So you’re going to start healing those gap junctions. When people have leaky gut, they need to heal those gap junctions in their gut. Fasting helps the healing process. Now, there are different types of fasts that are more beneficial than others, when it comes to healing the gut. But, overall, it’s going to help balance and heal the gut, in many ways. Another way that it helps balance and heal the gut is through the bacteria. So, we have this thing called a microbiome, and there are good bacteria and there are bad bacteria. Sometimes there are more bad bacteria than good, and that’s a really big problem. When you do a fast, what happens is it allows – and when there’s a bad bacteria that’s an overgrowth issue, it is called dysbiosis. So, when you do this fast, first of all, it can help kill down this bad bacteria overgrowth, and then also it can certainly help balance the bacteria out, as well. So the good bacteria can start to balance and take over. So there’s a lot of benefit to that.
Ashleigh: Awesome. And the gut is referenced as the second brain, and it controls so many things in your body, right?
Dr. Z: Yeah, absolutely. The gut’s referenced as the second brain because it actually has as much complex neurology as your brain. As a matter of fact, they’ve determined can actually work without your brain at all, like, it doesn’t need your brain. Every other area of your body really needs the brain to tell it what to do. The gut has such complex neurology that it can function independently. So that’s a little fun fact for you, let me throw that out there.
Now, this is another great benefit of fasting, however, it goes along with healing the digestive tract, healing the gut. So, the next huge benefit of fasting is that it helps clear up your skin, clear up your acne, clear up things such as eczema. And, I’ll tell you why, because when you have an unhealthy person, you have unhealthy skin. It just goes together. So, when people fast they find that their skin just clears up and looks really great. I can tell you, one of the things that actually got me into fasting, was in order to help clear up my skin. I don’t know if you remember that. It was probably like three or four…
Ashleigh: Oh, time just goes – I tell you, life just keeps speeding up.
Dr. Z: Let’s say four years ago. What happened is that I had developed a really bad rash around my eye. It literally looked like I got punched in the eye. I started – I thought maybe it was just because it was dry. I started making sure I was putting some coconut oil around it. That didn’t work out. I started…
Ashleigh: You did essential oils.
Dr. Z: I was doing essential oils. I even started using a steroid cream. It was bad. I don’t ever use steroid creams, but I started trying to use that because I was going into the clinic and, like I said, it looked like I got punched in the eye. People were actually asking if I got hit in the face.
Ashleigh: It was a pretty bad rash.
Dr. Z: And so, anyway, it started slow and I did everything and couldn’t get it to go away, so I did a fast. And literally by day two of the fast it was completely gone. So that’s my own personal story of it helping with the skin. And so, it certainly is an important aspect of healing the skin, as well. So when people have skin problems that just can’t go away, we’ve got to heal the digestive tract.
Ashleigh: Absolutely. Well, I was about to say earlier in the show. I had acne when I was in high school and things like that, nothing ever severe, but over the course of my life, I have flair-ups of acne and I’ve been able to correlate that, or fine tune that, to what I’m eating. So if I eat certain foods, I break out. But just recently I was having a lot of break out issues, and after the three-day fast that we just got out of, my skin is drastically different. It’s clear. There are no more bumps. There’s no more acne. It helped dramatically improve the quality of my skin. So, I’m really happy with the benefits from my fast.
Dr. Z: Absolutely. So one of the next really cool benefits of fasting is that it improves your immune system. So we get a huge immune system boost when we are fasting. Now, just through factors that they’ve taken and looked at in the blood, we know that it boosts many, many immune factors. Now, so knowing that much what they’ve done is they’ve taken it a step further, and they’ve looked at how fasting affects cancer, and cancer patients. And, with this one study, what they looked at is, when a patient was going through chemotherapy and they started fasting, what they found was, while they were fasting, and going through the chemotherapy, the good cells were preserved and the bad cells died off.
Ashleigh: Which is impressive, that’s huge, because normally it just kills everything, right?
Dr. Z: Right, exactly. And so, with the chemotherapy, they were able to preserve the healthy cells, which, like you said, that’s really huge. Now, one of the things they were saying in this study, it’s pretty hard to fast, a cancer patient going through chemotherapy. There are not too many people that raised their hand when they ask if they’d like to participate in that, however, we know that it’s very beneficial. So that is a huge landmark study that they have figured this out. And I’d love to see more studies regardless of chemotherapy, because just fasting alone on cancer cells, it crushes the cancer cells.
Ashleigh: That would be really interesting.
Dr. Z: Yeah, I’d love to see that. And so, we need more research, and we need to take the chemotherapy out of it and we need to see what it does to the cancer cells, because I’ve just heard a lot of testimonials from people who found out they had cancer, they fasted and then they went back and checked again and they were cancer-free. So, there are things like that that I’ve heard of first hand. So, those are really cool stories.
Now, another really cool study that was done on two different groups of rats is they took one group and they just fed them a regular diet. They could eat whenever they want. They got to eat all the time. And now there was another group of the mice, and what they did is they fed them in a way that they fasted every couple days. So they could eat, then they fast, they’d eat, then they’d fast. And what they found is that the mice that were on diet where they would fast on the regular, they were 45% less likely to fall victim to cancer than the other mice.
Ashleigh: Woah. So you’re saying it reduced the cancer rates by 45%?
Dr. Z: Yes.
Ashleigh: That’s huge.
Dr. Z: In the rats, they were 45% less likely to fall victim of cancer. So that’s absolutely huge.
Ashleigh: Imagine if 45% of Americans were able to decrease their risk of cancer. I mean, if you take the cancer rates in America and you cut those by 45% that would be life changing. That’s insane.
Dr. Z: And now, there’s another study where what they did is they measured some of the proteins that are associated with cardiovascular disease and they also, what they found, is with fasting, they were able to see a huge decrease in those proteins related to cardiovascular disease. And they would see a slight rise in the abundance of some stem cells in the blood. So, what they’re seeing is with the fasting there’s a rejuvenation process going on. What they’re seeing is that it’s very possible that fasting is going to help somebody avoid cardiovascular issues, as well.
Now, lastly, what I want to mention, while we’re on the topic of the immune system, is that when you fast, it helps reduce oxidative stress. So it decreases the accumulation oxidative radicals in the cell, and what that does is prevent oxidative damage to the cellular proteins and the lipids and the nucleic acids associated with disease. Just like I mentioned about the proteins, same thing, same concept here. Now, this is pretty important because when we look at oxidative stress it brings up the topic of cellular inflammation. And when we fast it helps down regulate the inflammatory process in the body. And when you down regulate the cellular inflammation, then you also have a much less possibility of disease, as well, because all of the diseases – cancer, heart disease, diabetes – they first start with an inflammatory response in the body. And so, that’s what we know about that.
Ashleigh: Right, absolutely. So it’s decreasing oxidative stress, decreasing inflammation in the body, increasing your immune system function. Really doing a lot of good, internally, in your body.
Dr. Z: Yes, absolutely. Now, with oxidative stress, one of the things that oxidative stress does to the body is it actually increases the aging process, and speeds it along. And there’s nobody who wants to age fast.
Ashleigh: Absolutely not.
Dr. Z: No, so this is a big topic – this is a hot topic – actually, right now, because it’s one of those things where nobody wants to age fast, everybody wants to live forever, so everybody is kind of clamoring
Ashleigh: Oh, yeah, it’s a million, if not billion, dollar industry, with all of the creams, potions, procedures, and surgeries out there that help to keep you younger and looking younger for as long as possible.
Dr. Z: Exactly. And let me tell you, anti-aging is not found in a bottle. What we’re going to talk about is how anti-aging can be found in a fast. Before we go into that, let’s talk about longevity here. This is a pretty interesting topic, actually, because many people think, right, we live in a little bubble and we think that people might live until their 70s or their 80s – a lot of people tell me, I can’t tell you how often people tell me – oh, I have good genes in my family, I’m going to live until I’m 90 years old. That does help, right, that certainly supports that you could potentially live longer. But that’s not…
Ashleigh: It’s not just your genes.
Dr. Z: Yeah, it’s not your genes that will determine that alone. It’s not a hereditary thing that your grandma lives to 90, you live to 90. So, there are some interesting things that we’ve found here. So, a doctor by the name of Dr. Wollock, and what he really emphasizes, and pushes, is that our genetic potential is designed to live to 120 to 140 years old. So we have the genetic potential to really live very long lives. Now, when we look at some of the different people around the world, it’s pretty interesting, because, you know there’s the Russian Georgians who commonly live to 120. And if we look at some of Armenians, who were living to 140, it wasn’t uncommon at all.
Ashleigh: Wow, in America that’s unheard of, it truly is.
Dr. Z: Right. So we have two examples right there. And then, you know one of the things that was cited is that there was an Armenian, who, through his military records, they found that he lived to be 167 years old. And then there’s the Titicaca Indians of SE Peru, and they live, on average, between 120 and 140 years old.
Ashleigh: Wow.
Dr. Z: Yeah, so longevity exists out there. Trust me. We’re not supposed to fall over of a heart attack at 50 years old. And that’s a very sad reality for a lot of people in America. It’s nothing to joke about. It’s a very sad reality.
Ashleigh: I’ve lost two uncles in their 50s from heart related issues. It’s all too prevalent. And although it’s common, it’s not normal.
Dr. Z: Now there’s also a Syrian, who’s in the Guinness Book of Records. He’s known for fathering 9 children after the age of 80. Fathered 9 children after the age of 80 and went on to live to 133. Okay?
Ashleigh: Woah, so he got to see those children live well into their 50s, which is more than a lot of people ever get to do in America.
Dr. Z: Right, now we also know of the Okinawans. They’re kind of the more popular ones that everybody talks about, the Okinawans. They boast that they have almost 1,000 people who are 100 years old or older. Over 1,000 people in their community, and Okinawa is just a small little island off the coast of Japan. So, these areas are called Blue Zones, where people live these very long lives. Now, let’s also not forget to mention here that they’re living these lives without 15 prescription drugs. These guys are living out in the woods. These are tribes that we’re talking about here. We’re talking about tribes that are just surviving off of the land. And so, they’re not walking around with 15 prescriptions and this amazing medical system, right?
Ashleigh: They don’t have 10 doctor’s appointments every couple months.
Dr. Z: Right, so be care what you’re duped into believing about your health, okay? So, now to put things in perspective – so the average life expectancy of an American is 75.5 years old. And then – which is even a more sad reality, it makes me sad – is that for doctors it’s 58 years old.
Ashleigh: Ouch.
Dr. Z: Yeah, that’s the average life expectancy. So 58 years old for a doctor, and that’s sad because the doctors should be the healthiest people out there, and typically they’re the sickest people out there. So when we look at the studies, though. So, for instance, there was a study that was done on mice, once again, and what they did is they took two groups of mice, one of them – what they would is in a month’s time, one group would have two, four-day fasting periods. And so, they would fast these mice two times a month, for four days, and what they found was those mice actually lived longer than the others. The other mice, they were allowed to eat as much as they want, all the time. Where the fasting group, they had to fast those two four day periods, and then they could eat as much as they want. And so, with that said, they fasting group, they would outlive their peers by an average of 3 months. Now, in the life cycle of a mouse or a rodent, this is huge. So outliving their peers by three months. So, that study shows, right there, longevity, even amongst the animal studies.
And that’s why, as of recently, when someone was speaking with me, you know, I was talking to them, people who eat less actually live longer. So, fasting promotes longevity. People who eat less, it promotes longevity. You might want to really, definitely consider that when you are thinking about longevity.
Now, one of the other things that can happen with fasting, which is a huge benefit, is the increase of human growth hormone. So, human growth hormone is like a youth hormone that helps your body to regenerate, stay young. What happens is, as we’re very young, we have lots of this. As we age, we start to have decreased HGH levels. Now, fasting dramatically improves and boosts the levels of HGH. So, what they are finding is that, some was showing that people who were fasting, it was boosting their HGH incredible amounts, so what they found, they were seeing HGH levels boosted as much as 1300% So 1,300% in women, and then they were also seeing it boosted as much as 2,000% in men.
Ashleigh: That’s incredible.
Dr. Z: When you have higher HGH, you’re able to heal and recover faster. You’re able to burn more fat and lose weight. So there are so many good things that come out of it. I mean, there’s a laundry list of good things that come from boosted HGH level.
Ashleigh: And staying younger longer, in a biological level.
Dr. Z: Yep, staying younger longer. So these things are all incredibly important when it comes to keeping yourself young.
Ashleigh: And health, overall. I mean, all of these benefits of fasting – you just have to hold steadfast, as the word said. Fasting, you hold steadfast in your commitment to yourself and you get these amazing health benefits. It’s incredible.
Dr. Z: Exactly. So, just to recap on that. So, one last time, fasting is going to boost your metabolism. It’s going to increase your brain function. It’s going to help heal your digestive system. It’s going to help clear your skin and your acne. It’s going to improve your immune system. And it’s going to promote longevity.
So, go ahead and try doing some sort of fast. I would start with the easiest one first and just go ahead and received the awesome benefits that it has to offer you.
Ashleigh: Absolutely. And if you need some support on this. Don’t be afraid to reach out. We’re definitely here to help. We talk about all kinds of topics such as this in our New Vision Excel Community on Facebook. We’ll hyperlink to that in the show notes, as well. A lot of people have experience with that and we’d be happy to share our personal stories, and what we went through in the new vision excel community.
Dr. Z: Right, exactly. So we’ll share our stories in there. And, once again, you can reach out to us through email. And, once again, I hope you enjoyed the show. We enjoy doing it with you.
Ashleigh: Alright, take care.
Dr. Z: Bye bye.