From: Chris Hibbert (cth@pancrit.org)
Date: Sun Jun 08 2003 - 12:24:31 MDT
According to an article in Science News on-line:
Skipping Meals Might Offer Health Gains
http://www.sciencenews.org/20030607/food.asp
Some quotes:
"The [intermittently fed] mice are not calorie restricted, and yet we
see changes in their physiology similar to those obtained with calorie
restriction,"
"it may be healthy to have reduced meal frequency." In other words,
skipping some meals—or occasionally fasting for the day—might be
beneficial, even if overall calorie consumption remains unchanged.
When resting, rats fed only on alternating days had lower heart rates
and blood pressure and less circulating glucose and insulin in their
blood than did the other rats. The sometimes-fasting rats also showed
muted cardiovascular responses to stress, suggesting that they more
readily adapt physiologically to such situations.
"A meal-skipping diet . . . is good for cells throughout the body"
because it periodically reduces the amount of glucose from digested
food available to cells, says Mattson. During those times, cells build
their ability to take up glucose when it's available he hypothesizes.
The article includes references to primary sources.
Chris
--
Pictures from my trip to the Four Corners area:
http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert/Canyon02/canyon.html
Chris Hibbert
http://discuss.foresight.org/~hibbert
chris@pancrit.org
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