Intermittent lifestyle
In recent years, periodic (intermittent) fasting has become increasingly popular, especially in the form of fasting-mimicking diets. Such diets stimulate autophagy and, subject to sufficient duration of their observance, significantly reduce the number of immune cells and trigger the process of updating their population. The purpose of using such diets is to activate at the cellular level a whole spectrum of stress reactions, which, as is known, provides a moderate positive effect on health. However, such diets are not the only approach to changing behavior and environment in order to activate positive cellular stress reactions, such as autophagy. The authors of an open access article published in the journal Medical Hypotheses (Pruimboom & Frits, Intermittent living; the use of ancient challenges as a vaccine against the deleterious effects of modern life – A hypothesis) believe that to improve human health, the best option is the introduction of a broader program of periodic interventions, compliance with which should also be strongly it is recommended as regular physical activity. The authors prefer to call their program, which appeared as a result of collecting and processing a huge amount of scientific data, "intermittent lifestyle".
Excerpts from the article:
Over the past three decades, the number of people suffering from chronic diseases, such as diseases of the cardiovascular system, diabetes mellitus, respiratory diseases, mental disorders, autoimmune diseases, as well as malignant neoplasms, has greatly increased. The growing frequency of these chronic pathologies indicates that the inflammation accompanying excessive or inadequate activity of the innate immune system does not ensure the development of normal reactions to danger signals that are new from the point of view of evolution.
These risk factors, mainly associated with the environment, are inevitable in the conditions of modern Western countries and in the future their impact is likely to only increase. It is important to note that many of these factors are interrelated and modern people are subject to their complex influence. Human populations adhering to a traditional lifestyle, whose habitat has not changed since the time of our ancestors, on the contrary, face short-term mono-metabolic hazard factors (for example, hunger, thirst, cold, heat). At the same time, modern people are exposed to multi-metabolic risk factors that generate an energy conflict between organs and the main organ systems. The resulting conflict between modern living conditions and what our genes and stress response systems are adapted to is taken as the basis for the so-called "imbalance hypothesis", which explains the development of "typically Western" diseases.
Mono-metabolic stress factors have formed adaptive mechanisms that ensure survival and reproduction, such as short-term inflammation, insulin resistance of tissues, activation of the sympathetic nervous system, and others. Mildly acting trigger (initiating) factors can at least partially restore physiological and metabolic disorders in patients with "typically Western" diseases. In other words, they can become low-cost opportunities for secondary prevention. It is quite possible that the chronic absence of mild stress factors has made modern people living in the 21st century less resistant to serious toxic effects and predisposed to the development of many "typically Western" chronic diseases associated with abundance and financial well-being, including metabolic disorders.
The results of a number of our studies have shown that a combination of certain intermittent stress factors triggers a hormetic (from "hormesis") early stress reaction, providing compensatory improvement of a variety of metabolic and immunological indicators, as well as general well-being. The studied hormetic triggers include: periodic fasting, periodic cooling, periodic hypoxia, periodic restrictions in fluid intake, as well as the use of a large amount of nutrients that have hormetic effects. The use of periodic provocations can act as a vaccine against the destructive influence of modern life. We called this concept "intermittent lifestyle". It involves the daily use of ancient stress triggers for 7-10 days a month. We propose to take this concept as the basis for interventions to improve the condition of people with chronic diseases and/or to prevent the development of such diseases. Intermittent lifestyle is nothing more than the return to our lives of mild short–term stressful effects from the environment (including cold, heat, hunger, thirst).
Evgenia Ryabtseva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of Fight Aging!: Intermittent Living as a Proposal for Enhanced Beneficial Cellular Stress Responses.