Newest Science on Fasting for Longevity (Length, Frequency, What to Eat)

Learn More Now

this is my 14 year old dog you bet your bottom dollar he fasts a lot because he thinks that if he occasionally restricts his calories that he's gonna live forever well that may not be entirely true he can go ahead and think that but with fasting there are strategic moves that we can make in terms of how we fast to possibly get the best longevity effect now full disclaimer we cannot say officially that fasting is going to make you live longer things like that okay but what we can look at are various observational studies and epidemiological research with people that restrict calories and we can also look at data that has to do with protein restriction and then of course we can look at some mechanistic stuff so let's go ahead and dive in this is going to be your complete guide to how to fast properly for longevity and spoiler alert it is not just doing one super long fast like some people tend to believe is the only answer when we look at fasting arguably the big benefit that comes to us from a longevity perspective is purely caloric restriction now don't turn off this video I'm not one of those people I'm not just a calories in calories out thinker that's not the way that I operate I largely sit in the fasting low carb Camp anyway but we do have to remember that the benefits from a longevity perspective with intermittent fasting or prolonged fasting probably do have to do with caloric restriction when you look at most to research caloric restriction and or protein restriction seem to be responsible for increases in lifespan and health spam so how does this intertwine with fasting what should we do if it's just caloric restriction does that mean that we can reduce our calories by fasting and then eat pizza no see here's where we have to get granular what you want to look at is mtor now what do I mean by that mtor is the growth switch okay when mtor mammalian Target of wrap myosin is spiked whenever we eat particularly when we eat protein it triggers growth growth is good because we build tissue we build muscle which we want all this stuff right the problem is that too much mtor over a long period of time is also what degrades us because we need to have periodic breaks from food for consolidation efforts I've used this analogy in other videos before but would you rather have 10 houses that are really incredibly built that have holes in the roof and leak and are terrible or would you rather have two homes that are really efficient work really well don't cost a lot of money to run because they're efficient and they're sealed and I don't have holes in the ceiling yeah that's the way we need to look at ourselves too so just because we have the ability to eat a lot of protein and grow and build doesn't mean that we should always be doing that because occasionally we need to reel it in a little bit restrict the calories and allow autophagy to occur and consolidate some of these things that's where autophagy and Longevity really come in so then you say okay with protein stimulates mtor and mtor stops autophagy then what the heck am I supposed to do am I supposed to eat a lower protein diet well the nice thing with fasting is this remember how I mentioned that mtor is a switch well you can occasionally turn that switch on and occasionally turn it off much of the problem that we face in today's world is the fact that we always have this switch on because we're always eating we're eating four times a day five times a day 10 times a day snacking 15 times a day right and we're constantly having this mtor switch on because as I've mentioned before it is not a dimmer switch it doesn't just turn on a little bit or a lot it's either on or off plain and simple you eat a little bit of protein it turns it on so with fasting we allow ourselves the ability to have long breaks from not only calories but long breaks from protein too and then when it's time to flip the switch weaken in a very concerted effort and Consolidated period flip that switch and then we have protein assimilation we have overall protein synthesis what we want and that is the goal but then the issue comes into play with protein restriction occasionally we should be restricting protein too and I know it's not what people want to hear here's where the Catch-22 comes in and I've discussed this before but here's how it plays with fasting we need protein because we need muscle we see in all these different studies that muscle is a glucose sink the more muscle that we have the less likelihood of possibly having insulin resistance we have because we have more places for the glucose to go we also are able to Stave off Frailty if we have muscle and we take a fall or we get sick or we get cancer we have more tissue to burn through it's that simple so we don't want to completely neglect protein but then on the other side of the equation there is very clear evidence that protein is actually shortening lifespan there's pretty clear evidence with that there was a study that was published in the journal biochemical biophysica Ulta and this just demonstrated that generally the benefits when it comes down to longevity are about 50 percent from caloric restriction and 50 from protein restriction so what this is ultimately telling us is that we're getting two different sets of benefits one set of benefits simply by restricting calories and one set of benefits by restricting protein now my opinion fasting checks both of those boxes right you're restricting calories and you're restricting protein one could argue that it's easier to sustain protein restriction for a lifetime than it is to sustain say caloric restriction so here's plain and simple what I suggest that you do okay a couple of days per week do a longer fasts that is about 18 to 22 hours if you do a fast like this you are attenuating that inventory response and you're allowing autophagy to increase so you're getting a benefit there at say 14 16 hours you're not getting enough autophagy to get much of a benefit your benefit there is really just coming from caloric restriction but if a couple days per week you push it to 18 20 22 hours you are definitely getting some autophagy and some consolidation efforts that are happening there that is very beneficial okay on the days that you are fasting longer feel okay to have higher amounts of protein okay and when I say higher amounts I don't mean go to the total Nth Degree with it but don't be afraid of protein don't try to limit your protein too much you should try to get more protein in because you want to counteract all the breakdown that occurred during a fast the nice thing here is that you're flipping that switch on and purely on okay during this Consolidated period of time that switches on remember the problem generally comes with turning that switch on over time it's more about how long that switch is on compared to when the switch is on okay so in this particular case we get the benefit of being able to increase our protein intake and have not as much negative drawback because we've been fasting most of the day let's do that two days per week on the other days that you are not fasting you'd be totally okay to do maybe a modified fast something like 14 hours or 16 hours just being aware of what you're eating during your regular eating period now one of the things I want to make sure that I pay attention to when I'm doing these longer fast or just regular fasting is also my gut microbiome now remember the gut microbiome plays a very clear role in how we metabolize glucose how we metabolize fats and that plays a very big role in longevity as well so you always want to be cautious with that so when I am fasting or after I break my fast I usually take a really good probiotic I put the one that I use down below it's called seed they are a symbiotic which means they have a probiotic and a Prebiotic and there is a capsule inside of a capsule so really cool technology so it's kind of got this multi-stage delivery of the Prebiotic and the probiotic this just becomes really important because as you fast you have shifts in your gut microbiome and it's a perfect opportunity to take advantage of potential recolonization so definitely want to try that if you have a preferred brand you like that's all good but the one that I use is down below and you can use that code and that link to save 15 off so 15 off your daily symbiotic with seed down Below in the description okay so let's say you did those two days per week of your longer fasts the other days per week you would want to try to reduce your protein a tiny bit now when I say this I don't mean a ton I just mean maybe reduce your protein down to you know 0.5 grams per pound of body weight that's a decent amount and considering the fact that you're probably still working out and considering the fact that you've been doing these longer fast other days of the week you're probably going to be in a little bit of a deficit anyway this is where it's really important to factor in two things methionine is a specific amino acid that is starting to rear its ugly head in the research a lot okay methionine seems to impair longevity benefits so there's been some interesting studies there's a study that's published in the journal nutrition that took a look specifically at this looked at rats that consumed a chow that had 0.86 percent methionine compared to rats that consumed 0.16 methionine the lower Metheny group had a 30 percent longer lifespan fan so it looks like methionine might just be one of these essential amino acids that is a heavy trigger now we can get granular there's also something called s adenosyl methionine which is what methionine ultimately converts into and S adenosomethionine is a potent inhibitor of autophagy so methionine indirectly then turns into Sam acidenso methionine and Sam blocks autophagy and also stimulates mtor so if we can reduce the methionine intake then possibly we can help this out now we can do that two different ways okay for one we can start eating more in the way of organ meat and getting our protein and our nutrients via organ meat okay so things like liver things like kidney things like spleen things like things that just sound weird even hard right because skeletal muscle muscle meat is very high in methionine and it's interesting because when you look at even a plant-based movement and people talk about that they Reign on methionine for similar reasons but the fact the matter is is that it's the meat like on the skeletal muscle meat that is rich in methionine so we can kind of get around that by getting some of our protein from the organ Meats we can also get around this by periodically going plant-based and one of the things that I think we need to look at from a longevity perspective with fasting is that fasting allows us to have days where we have high amounts of protein with very minimal drawback okay but on the days that we're not doing a longer fast it would be advantageous for us to cycle and do periods of plant-based fasting where you go I'm in a fast alongside a vegan protocol or a fast alongside a plant-based protocol for two days per week and then when I say fast I mean in this case a shorter fast like 16 hours right so you could do 14 hours you could do 16 hours a couple days per week alongside your longer fasts but this is allowing us to do is get the benefits of fasting across different categories we get the benefits of fasting amongst high protein we get the benefits of fasting amongst organ meat and better simulation there and we get the benefits of fasting along with low protein from a plant-based protocol what's interesting is if you look at the plant-based diets as much as I'm not a plant-based guy I find this very interesting the plant-based diets are much lower in essential amino acids and in theory that sounds really bad and in some ways it is we want those essential amino acids but since plant-based food has lower essential amino acids there's less of an mtor Spike well it's not so much the mtor as it is possibly other longevity directions so there's a study that was published in the journal Nature that looked at flies because they do a lot of studies for longevity with flies and it found that when they restricted calories these flies the Flies lived longer but then when they were restricted calories and gave them supplemental essential amino no acids it halted the longevity benefit the essential amino acids actually stopped the benefit of caloric restriction but when they supplemented non-essential amino acids it did not stop the longevity effect and the thing that we have to look at with a plant-based diet is yes a plant-based diet is going to be lower EAA and higher non-essential amino acids so there's less inhibition of the longevity benefits does this mean you need to do a plant-based diet all the time no because the question again comes into play is do you limit yourself with how much protein you can get it's a little bit of a rhetorical question I don't really know because it all depends on you right so I have nothing no problems with people that are doing intermittent fasting or prolonged fasting alongside a plant-based diet but I'm looking at it from the entirety piece here moderate amounts of protein so just to staple it all out for you so you have a plan to follow two days per week 18 to 22 or even 24 hours of fasting with higher protein intake during your eating period now I'm not going to get granular with everything else that's just what you want to follow I would say at this rate one gram per pound of body weight on the high end 0.7 grams per pound of body weight in the Middle Ground definitely no less than 0.5 so really trying to get it into a relatively Consolidated window that sounds like a lot of protein but if you're having a four hour eating window or a six hour eating window that's entirely doable if you're doing a longer fast with a very short window yeah you probably can't get 200 grams of protein in one meal but you could easily get 150 grams of protein over the course of six hours it's not that hard to get three separate scents of 50 grams of protein then on the days just to staple it out again two or three days per week do a 14 hour fast nothing less than a 12 hour fast okay and on those days you want to be eating organ meats you want to be cycling through that as much as you can or you you want to periodically do plant-based just to kind of cycle through it on the other days that are remaining during the week that is your prerogative but one thing that I would say for certain is make sure that you are not grazing throughout the day have clear defined Meals one two three because remember that mtor is not a dimmer switch it's an on off switch so we can turn it off on for better breakfast and then turn it off turn it on for lunch and then back off turn it on for dinner and then back off instead of on for breakfast on forbid morning snack on for late afternoon snack on for lunch you get what I'm saying with it as always keep a lock to hear my channel I'll see you tomorrow