So, what’s going on?

Well, when they examined the brains of the fasting mice.

They found something extraordinary. 

These green objects are newborn brain cells.   

These three here are brand new?

Sporadic bouts of hunger actually trigger new neurons to grow.

Why should a brain start to generate new nerve cells when you stop feeding it?

If you think about this in evolutionary terms, it makes sense.

If you’re hungry, you’d better increase your cognitive ability.   

That will give you a survival advantage, if you can remember where the location of the food is and so on.

It seems that fasting stresses your grey matter the way that exercise stresses your muscles.

So hunger really does make you sharper?

Yes. We think so.   

Mark’s research is starting to point towards a simple conclusion.

Alternate day fasting has better effects on the brain than does a lower-amount-of-daily-calorie restriction.

It’s true of mice, but he needs to do proper human trials to prove it’s true in us.   

I’ve come to the end of my search to find out how to eat, fast and live longer.

The official advice is, eat at least 2,000 calories a day, and if you really want to fast, even on an intermittent basis, see your doctor first, because there are people it could harm such as pregnant women or those who are already underweight.

— Eat, Fast and Live Longer

— BBC Horizon

— Me@2013-10-05 1:06 AM

2014.11.13 Thursday ACHK