Intermittent Fasting

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Anchor lead: Periodic fasting may be the best way to lose fat, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Avoiding eating for intervals may help your body use stored fat as an energy source, a review paper by Mark Mattson, a neurosciences researcher at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues, shows. Mattson describes what’s needed to induce your body to mobilize fat.

Mattson: Intermittent fasting involves eating patterns with time periods sufficient to cause depletion of liver energy stores and utilization of fat. So if someone is eating three meals a day plus snacks and they’re not getting vigorous exercise then every time they eat they replenish their liver energy stores and they may never tap into the fat. Beyond just using fat there’s a lot that goes on in the body and brain when this metabolic switch occurs.  :30

Mattson says a number of models exist for adopting such a strategy, so fitting one to your own preferences is possible. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.