Nutritionist explains US trend diet: With easy fasting, you not only lose weight – you also rejuvenate your cells

Fasting not only melts fat deposits in the body: it also has a positive effect on high blood pressure, diabetes and other common diseases. In addition, it also makes you look younger – anti-aging doctor Bernd Kleine-Gunk explains how it works.

Fasting is booming. Temporarily going without food is considered the royal road to more health and vitality. Dozens of methods of voluntary starvation have been established, from the effective but brute zero diet to the rather superficially effective intermittent fasting.

A new variant from the USA, the Fasting Mimicking Diet (in English: mock fasting) is now taking a revolutionary different approach: in the five-day diet tested in clinical studies, fasting people eat three solid meals a day and still enjoy the positive fasting effects for their figure , cell renewal and blood values.

The Nuremberg gynecologist and nutritionist Bernd Kleine-Gunk reveals how this works. The 62-year-old is the publisher of the first German specialist book for anti-aging medicine and President of the German Society for Anti-Aging Medicine (GSAAM).

FOCUS Online: Fake fasting promises that the positive cell processes that are triggered by strict fasting can also be achieved with food – how can that work?

Bernd Kleine-Gunk: The basic principle is based on banning sugar, starch and above all animal proteins from the plate for five days. If you do without these nutrients and at the same time reduce the energy intake to 750 to a maximum of 1100 kilocalories a day, the body switches to fasting metabolism.

This discovery goes back to the US biogerontologist Valter Longo, one of the world’s most renowned researchers on aging, who teaches at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

But why does the body think it’s fasting when it’s not getting protein and sugar?

Kleine-Gunk: Meat, milk, eggs, but also sugar, white bread or sweet fruits activate certain signaling pathways and metabolic switches in the body that indicate “eating”. This leads to cell division and growth being stimulated.

However, constant cell growth in adults is not unproblematic; it ultimately results in accelerated aging and biological decay. If you temporarily do without protein and sugar, the course is set in the direction of repair and regeneration. The body is fooled into thinking that it is strictly fasting.

What food is allowed when fasting?

Kleine-Gunk: There are two ways to implement the fasting-mimicking diet. The original variant comes from Valter Longo. He developed a patented commercial meal package called “ProLon” based on decades of research. It mainly contains packet soups, nut bars, olives or crackers.

The alternative way to get into fasting mode is via a tasty, vegan diet, as I present it in the practical guide “Easy Fasten” (GU Verlag, 14.99 euros).

What is on the table during mock fasting?

Kleine-Gunk: Mainly low-calorie and high-fiber vegetables and salads, but also legumes, mushrooms, nuts, avocados and olives. In total, you eat 1100 calories on the first day and 750 calories on each of the following four days. Of course, this is significantly less energy than usual.

On the other hand, you enjoy three solid meals a day, remaining fit for everyday life and still having the health benefits of classic therapeutic fasting, where you consume around 300 kilocalories in the form of vegetable broth or juices.

How Much Weight Can You Lose With Fake Fasting?

Gunk: Two to three kilograms, depending on the starting weight. However, sham fasting is not designed as a reduction diet. The decisive factor is the strong rejuvenating effect at the cellular level.

In response to the lack of energy, cell components that actually represent waste are broken down by enzymes and used, for example, to build new cell structures. This mechanism, called autophagy, makes the cell fitter.

The Japanese cell biology Yoshinori Ohsumi received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016 for researching this process. The entire organism also benefits because the “cell waste” promotes a number of diseases and aging processes.

Does this have a measurable effect on health?

Kleine-Gunk: Yes, the data is clear. Both classic therapeutic fasting and sham fasting have shown in studies that they can keep significant risk factors for age-related diseases in check.

In a randomized study at the University of Southern California, 100 subjects went on a sham fasting diet five days a month for three months. Obese participants lost an average of more than 3.6 kilograms in weight, primarily body fat. The participants’ cholesterol levels fell by an average of 20 mg/dl. Fasters who initially had elevated fasting blood glucose levels lowered glucose levels by 12 mg/dl. People with slightly elevated blood pressure were happy about 6 mmHg less blood pressure in their veins after the diet.

So sham fasting is designed for repeated use?

Gunk: Yes. The easy fast contains so many calories, vitamins and essential nutrients that healthy people can do this type of fasting several times a year, even without the support of a nutritionist. Anyone who is generally not allowed to fast, such as pregnant women or people who are underweight, is also taboo for sham fasting. Anyone suffering from chronic health problems should speak to their doctor first.

Intermittent fasting has become very popular in recent years. How big is the rejuvenation effect with this variant?

Kleine-Gunk: As a small solution, short fasting, for example according to the 16:8 method, is definitely a good thing. However, the meal break is too short for the metabolism to switch to cell recycling in the long term.

Last but not least, an important aspect of fasting is the so-called ketosis, i.e. the state in which the body switches to the state of fat burning. But it only does so after it has used up its glycogen reserves, the stored carbohydrates. This is usually the case after about a day or two.

With intermittent fasting and other short-term fasting programs, I don’t reach this state. This is a further argument in favor of inserting longer periods of fasting from time to time. With mock fasting, this is possible without much effort and with little effort. What you used to have to go to a fasting clinic for is now possible at home and on your own.