The Fasting Mimicking Diet was created by Dr. Valter Longo. This diet can mimic a 3 day water fast while still eating small amounts of food that trick the body into thinking it’s not taking in any nutrients. Cool, huh? While the benefits of a water fast include a shorter duration compared to the 5 days of a FMD, most people find it hard to finish the water fast. I am in the beginning stages of doing the water fast and it’s intersting to say the least. My first fast started with the 16/8 style. Where you don’t eat for 16 hours and limit food intake to 8 hours. My second was a 24 hour water fast. The third was a 36 hour water fast. Here I began to see some changes. I was starting to use ketones for fuel at the 36 hour mark. At 24 hours I was hungry and tired and angry a bit. Hangry is the official term I believe.  But when I woke the next morning at 36 hours there was a peaceful clarity I have personally never experienced before. No hunger, just calm, relaxed and clear headed. Total clarity. I broke the fast and now knew I would be able to make a three day or 72 hour water fast.

The FMD has many benefits for just about everyone, including cancer patients. The cool thing is it may increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation if you fast before and after chemo etc.

The cancer cell doesn’t have this protective shield that our normal cells do when food is removed for periods of time. So, the chemo doesn’t effect your cells since they are in a protected mode. The cancer has lost this ability and can’t stop the chemo from killing it. So many other metabolism changes are taking place as well.

This excerpt below is from the Prolon website which offers a ready to eat 5 day FMD. Head over there if you want to know more…

THE EFFECTS OF THE FASTING MIMICKING DIET

Better preservation of cognitive functions. Adopting a low-calorie diet not only contributes to cellular regeneration but also helps to reinforce neural regeneration and enhance learning abilities.
Reduction of abdominal fat with a significant increase in muscle mass in relation to body weight.
Decrease of risk factors for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. Studies assert that it would be able to repair pancreatic cells responsible for producing insulin.
Significant improvement in blood pressure and cholesterol values ​​in subjects having the following alterations.
The strategic deprivation of certain nutrients, not only prevents the risk of developing pathologies such as cancer, but it has also produced a decrease in the IGF1 hormone by stimulating the regeneration of tissues. The hormone IGF1 is necessary for growth during development. However, when we get older it is a cause of diseases in the process of cellular aging.
A rejuvenation of the immune system, a kind of “reset” whereby about a third will be destroyed, and will be rebuilt during the refeeding, or when a normal diet is resumed.

 

Basically you can reboot your immune system! There are clinical trials taking place to evaluate the chemotherapy results of fasting which are very promising as well.

For the moment, fasting for 72 hours or a 5 day FMD by itself gives similar results to just doing chemotherapy by itself. But together, they appear to be completely synergistic.

I look forward to more on this promising method to add to our store of treatments available for various cancers.