Can Fasting Help You Live Longer?

Can Fasting Help You Live Longer?
By Huang-Fu Chang

Fasting has been looked upon as a technique to increase health, and extend life for centuries. It has been linked to ancient Greece and traditional Eastern Medicine and is now being used in modern clinics to treat disorders such as fatigue or high cholesterol. All of these disorders could cause a decrease in life span, but can fasting really help you to live a longer life?

Fasting has been proven to help people live longer by changing the way that the body uses and stores fat within itself.

Research has shown that people who fast at least once per month have been shown to live longer than others because of the decreased chance of clogged arteries by forty percent. Clogged arteries result in coronary events, which contribute to high rates of death in many developed countries.

Studies have been completed with Mormons who have been known to fast for one day each and every month, the first Sunday; and have come to the conclusion that because of the fasting, they are in control of their eating habits. One who is in control of their eating habits is less likely to become obese, or have a high body mass index. These lowered factors can increase life expectancy up to ten years because of a lowered chance of these factors causing complications and disorders which could lead to death.

Fasting can have positive effects on blood sugar because when one is fasting they are not exposing their bodies to refined sugars. This break from refined sugars, one to two times per month has shown to increase life spans by up to five years.

Besides these facts, it lowers the metabolic rate, benefiting the body in numerous ways. When the metabolic rate is reset it allows weight loss to occur with ease, as well as new start to how food is used within the body. Fasting has been used as a tool for the obese to lose weight quickly for generations, now - we are sure of the fact that fasting can also contribute to a longer life.

People who fast, or even lower their caloric intake can increase their life span, maintain the health of their organs may avoid all of the problems that are associated with aging and the body. The disorders which fasting individuals lowered their risk of developing were; heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke. All of these disorders are common illnesses as the body ages, but fasting allows the body to interrupt this natural process, and create a natural, beneficial process all its own.

Huang-Fu Chang

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