So, for a retrospective approach with existing data, I could try to find a constellation of proxy variables in the ICD9 V-codes and maybe some lab values suggestive of basically healthy patients who consume a lower-than-typical amount of calories. Not in a very health-conscious part of the country though, so unlikely that a large number of patients would do this on purpose, let alone one specific fasting strategy.
Now, something I could do is team up with a local dietician or endocrinologist and recruit patients to try calorie restriction.
Now, something I could do is team up with a local dietician or endocrinologist and recruit patients to try calorie restriction.
Why not run a pilot on yourself first? The nice thing about IF is that in many forms, it’s dead easy: you eat nothing one day, twice as much the next. Record some data on yourself for a few months (weight? blood glucose*? a full blood panel?), and you’ll have solid data about your own reactions to IF and a better idea what to look for.
Personally, I would be surprised if you could do worthwhile research on IF by mining research records: ‘eating food every day’ is nigh-universal, and most datasets are concerned entirely with what people eat, not when. You might have to get creative and do something like look for natural experiments involving fasting such as Ramadan.
* and don’t write off blood glucose as too painful or messy for non-diabetics to measure! Blood glucose strip testing turns out to be easier than I thought. I used up a package recently: while I nearly fainted the first time as my heart-rate plunged into the mid-50s because of my blood phobia, over the course of 10 strips I progressed to not minding and my heart-rate hardly budging.
The nice thing about IF is that in many forms, it’s dead easy: you eat nothing one day, twice as much the next.
A particular form of IF I’ve heard of from several places is even easier: only eat within an 8-hour window each day. I often do that out of sheer can’t-be-arsed-to-have-breakfastness.
(I hear that existing studies about that are pretty confounded, e.g. they find that people who don’t have breakfast are less healthy but the effect disappears when controlling for conscientiousness.)
who consume a lower-than-typical amount of calories.
No. With intermittent fasting your total calorie consumption isn’t necessarily below average, rather you have periods of time in which you either don’t eat or only eat fats. I do what’s called bulletproof intermittent fasting. One unexpected result is that I don’t get colds anymore because, I think, of autophagy. I used to get about four a year and I have been doing the fasting for a little over two years so this result is significant.
I last took biology in high school so don’t put too much trust in this or lower your opinion of me if this sounds silly, but: autophagy involves your body eating its own cells and your body is somehow smart enough to sometimes target harmful cells and therefore autography might be causing my body to destroy cells that get invaded by the rhinovirus infection.
OK, fair enough. I generally think of autophagy as being within a cell, but perhaps virally infected cell compartments are more likely to be “eaten” under nutrient stress, or perhaps my application of the word autophagy is incorrect here.
So, for a retrospective approach with existing data, I could try to find a constellation of proxy variables in the ICD9 V-codes and maybe some lab values suggestive of basically healthy patients who consume a lower-than-typical amount of calories. Not in a very health-conscious part of the country though, so unlikely that a large number of patients would do this on purpose, let alone one specific fasting strategy.
Now, something I could do is team up with a local dietician or endocrinologist and recruit patients to try calorie restriction.
Why not run a pilot on yourself first? The nice thing about IF is that in many forms, it’s dead easy: you eat nothing one day, twice as much the next. Record some data on yourself for a few months (weight? blood glucose*? a full blood panel?), and you’ll have solid data about your own reactions to IF and a better idea what to look for.
Personally, I would be surprised if you could do worthwhile research on IF by mining research records: ‘eating food every day’ is nigh-universal, and most datasets are concerned entirely with what people eat, not when. You might have to get creative and do something like look for natural experiments involving fasting such as Ramadan.
* and don’t write off blood glucose as too painful or messy for non-diabetics to measure! Blood glucose strip testing turns out to be easier than I thought. I used up a package recently: while I nearly fainted the first time as my heart-rate plunged into the mid-50s because of my blood phobia, over the course of 10 strips I progressed to not minding and my heart-rate hardly budging.
The Ramadan natural experiment is interesting, this has been discussed wrt sport performance previously, eg see http://regressing.deadspin.com/is-fasting-for-ramadan-dangerous-at-the-world-cup-1598373130
A particular form of IF I’ve heard of from several places is even easier: only eat within an 8-hour window each day. I often do that out of sheer can’t-be-arsed-to-have-breakfastness.
(I hear that existing studies about that are pretty confounded, e.g. they find that people who don’t have breakfast are less healthy but the effect disappears when controlling for conscientiousness.)
No. With intermittent fasting your total calorie consumption isn’t necessarily below average, rather you have periods of time in which you either don’t eat or only eat fats. I do what’s called bulletproof intermittent fasting. One unexpected result is that I don’t get colds anymore because, I think, of autophagy. I used to get about four a year and I have been doing the fasting for a little over two years so this result is significant.
How do you postulate that autophagy reduces the risk of rhinovirus infection?
I last took biology in high school so don’t put too much trust in this or lower your opinion of me if this sounds silly, but: autophagy involves your body eating its own cells and your body is somehow smart enough to sometimes target harmful cells and therefore autography might be causing my body to destroy cells that get invaded by the rhinovirus infection.
OK, fair enough. I generally think of autophagy as being within a cell, but perhaps virally infected cell compartments are more likely to be “eaten” under nutrient stress, or perhaps my application of the word autophagy is incorrect here.
Here is what seems like a pretty good overview of intermittent fasting: http://easacademy.org/trainer-resources/article/intermittent-fasting
Um, calorie restriction in the necessary amounts is quite unpleasant and are you willing to commit to a multi-decade trial anyway..?