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Fasting and Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is considered to be the reason behind some of the major health issues and fasting is one of the scientifically proved methods to lower the insulin resistance and issues concerned with it.

Thursday April 4, 2024 12:08 PM, Dr. Shugufta Hamid

Our bodies were not designed to eat 24 hours. Continuous eating leads to a number of devastating conditions which include weight gain, inflammation, destruction of brain cells, impaired immune system, dearranged insulin levels and many more.

Insulin resistance is considered to be the reason behind some of the major health issues and fasting is one of the scientifically proved methods to lower the insulin resistance and issues concerned with it.

Following are some of the ways where Fasting comes to play it’s role in Insulin resistance:

1.

The most prominent feature of Type-2 Diabetes mellitus has been known to improve with caloric restriction. After a period of fasting, insulin sensitivity rises and insulin levels fall. This results in improved fasting and post prandial glucose levels.

Thus, helping the patients of Type-2 Diabetes mellitus to normalise their elevated blood sugar levels.

2.

Insulin resistance is associated with an increased inflammatory state including elevated CRP, decreased adiponectin, lower low density lipoprotein and other metabolic factors, which all contribute to or are associated with atherosclerosis which is considered to be one of the major risk factor for conditions like MI, Angina, PVD, Aortic dissection, HTN, CAD, Stroke and many more.

3.

Further-more insulin is known to be both atherogenic as well as increases the risk of fluid retention and congestive cardiac failure.

Thus, decreased insulin resistance through fasting could have the potential for reducing such major adverse events.

4.

Through the improvements of the insulin sensitivity, fasting also shows beneficial effects on the brain as it leads to decreased levels of circulating insulin in the blood which enhances the insulin sensitivity and up-regulates the insulin /IGF-1 signalling pathway leading to the enhanced uptake and utilization of glucose by neurons.

Upregulated ISS activity also decreases the activity of the mToR pathway and is associated with enhancement of neuroplasticity and protection against oxidative stress and can prevent the diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Amyotrophic Lateral sclerosis etc.

5.

Fasting also plays an important role in weight loss, as it causes the insulin levels to fall which in turn leads to the reduction of adipose tissue growth.

Thus, keeping the above-mentioned benefits in mind we can conclude that fasting helps to normalise the insulin resistance and thus a lot of serious conditions assoiciated with it.

Furthermore fasting has been shown to improve various metabolic and inflammatory pathways including:

• Increased heat shock protein
• Promoting cellular autophagy
• Reducing advanced glycation end products
• Decreased inflammation cytokinins

Hence, fasting with it’s various health benefits has a great potential to be used as a healing method for various life-threatening conditions.

[Author: Dr. Shugufta Hamid (PG Scholar) under guidance of Hakim Mohammed Sheeraz, Research Officer Unani and Reader Department of Moalajat, Regional Research Institute of Unani Medicine, University of Kashmir, Srinagar.]

 

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