Intermittent Fasting Promotes White Adipose Browning by Shaping Gut Microbiota | Hacker News Reader

Intermittent Fasting Promotes White Adipose Browning by Shaping Gut Microbiota

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37 pointsdtawfik110 comments

Neat. I've been fasting for an average of 6 days at a time, once-a-month. It's hell for the first 3 days but it gets better.

Related but different, perhaps someone with a bio/med background knows: Regarding the metformin FDA Phase 4 clinical trial for life extension and a conflicting recommendation from my PCP that metformin (1500 mg) has a significant risk of injury from acute hypoglycemia in those (like yours truly) without type-2 diabetes but being overweight (about 20%). I didn't see anything in the literature or box warnings about common hypoglycemia risks, especially in good liver & kidney functional patients, and the body can regulate glucose with a panoply of pathways. Seems to me, metformin looks like it has massive potential to benefit many people to up-regulate healthy pathways, but only if doctors understood its limitations and capabilities in settings outside of diabetes. Or am I missing or wrong about something?

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02432287

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-11285-7061/metformin-oral...

https://www.drugs.com/sfx/metformin-side-effects.html

Out of curiousity, how did you choose your regimen? It does sound very hard to follow.

I fast every other day (the EODF method the paper studied). It's actually surprisingly easy and from what I can tell from the (no more than a dozen) sources I've read it's just as effective as longer-term fasts. I've been at it since July, with two weekly breaks basically. I was also overweight before starting. My BMI went from 26.3 to 24.2 since then, something I had been trying to achieve for at least a couple of years, with no success.

I'd also be interested to hear from someone with a medical or biological background. I'm particularly interested in the effects of fasting on blood pressure and kidneys. I have an older relative who is a kidney patient and overweight which probably contributes to their high blood pressure and it'd be great if I could recommend they follow my diet.

Yeah, I was 28.5, currently 26.9 and aiming for 20.

> I've been fasting for an average of 6 days at a time, once-a-month.

Can you explain your process more? Do you hold not eat for 18 or so hours for those 6 days?

Just water often and electrolytes (Ca, Na, Mg, K) as needed.

I've been testing fish oil to convince the gallbladder to empty because developing gallstones doesn't sound fun.

Background: I'm currently about 35 lbs. / 16 kg. overweight, which was partially medication-contributed but I also picked up the proverbial fork, and now I'm just not very hungry.

Here is some preliminary reading: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5274505

ELIhuman?

Every-other-day fasting seems to convert “bad” white fat to “good” brown fat, but nobody really knew why. This study found that fasting causes the bacteria in your gut to produce certain molecules that might be responsible.

One can image both the supplement and medical industries will rush to deliver a pill or a "probiotic."

Also, it might be interesting if weight loss could also be partially achieved by fecal transplantation from known, extremely healthy individuals.

I'm by no means a expert in this, but the gist of it is that not all fat tissue is created equal. "Brown fat" burns more calories and can help control weight and mitigate diet related health issues. Intermittent fasting (in this case eating every other day) increases the amount of brown fat deposits in the body. Exercise has been shown to do the same.

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