Fasting

Water only fasting
As the name implies, this is a type of fasting where only water may be consumed – no other food or beverage is permitted.

Liquid fasting
Some fasts include abstaining from solid foods but consuming calorie-containing liquids, such as vegetables juices or broth.

Intermittent fasting
In this form of fasting, a person alternates between periods of fasting and non-fasting, with a defined schedule. Intermittent fasting is of interest to researchers for its potential effects on insulin sensitivity and other aspects of health.

Physiological effects
A fast with duration sufficient to deplete the body's glycogen stores may puts the body into a fat-burning mode called ketosis.

Fasting also increases autophagy.

Health effects
There is no evidence on the benefits or harms of fasting for ME and CFS patients. However, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting possible health benefits of water-only fasting to the microbiome, mitochondria and the immune system, and as a cancer adjuvant.

Immune system
Caloric restriction significantly reduced the amount of circulating lipopolysaccharide-binding protein. In vitro, short-term (19 hour) fasting reduced monocyte metabolic and inflammatory activity and drastically reduced the number of circulating monocytes. Caloric restriction and intermittent fasting strongly reduced the accumulation of pathogenic monocytes in the central nervous system, reduced monocyte pro-inflammatory activity, and improved disease outcome in a mouse model of multiple sclerosis and in a preclinical model in multiple sclerosis patients.

Chronic fatigue syndrome
Courtney Craig has proposed the use of fasting, caloric restriction and a ketogenic diet in the treatment of mitochondrial damage in ME/CFS.

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 * 2016, Fasting Diets Are Gaining Acceptance