Calories restriction can increase levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factors (BDNFs), which are thought to play an important role in mood disorders.
For over a century, fasting has been favored as “a great utility in the preservation of health,” particularly as a treatment of the body and, above all, rejuvenation. But when people get 18 hours faster, they can become hungry and irritated. After a day or two, a positive mood decreases, a negative mood rises, and after three days, Faster can become increasingly saddened, self-deprecating, and loss of sexual desire. Then something strange begins to happen. People tend to “experience fast-induced mood boosting, reflected in improved anxiety, depression, fatigue and vitality.” Research tends to show this all at once. Upon overcoming the hump, Faster frequently experiences “an increased level of vigilance and mood improvement, subjective happiness, and sometimes happiness.” And by then, endorphin levels could rise by nearly 50%, so as you can see here, fasting to treat depression at 1:06, my video Friday favourite.
This reinforcement of mood, awakening and calmness brings some evolutionary meaning. Our bodies want us to feel poor first, so we continue to eat every day when food is available, but if we go for a few days without food, our bodies realize that we are not just in the cave. We need to be motivated to go out and find calories.
So, can fasting be used for mood disorders like depression? It’s great that people feel better after a few days of fasting, but once the fast ends and you eat your resume, important questions unfold, with the “persistent mood improvement over time.” Small evidence we emerge from Japan and the former Soviet Union, like this study involving women with various symptoms, in my video below and at 2:08, researchers blame the constrice of marriage primarily. Does your husband treat you correctly? What about “electroshock therapy”? It seemed like it wasn’t very useful, so what about hunger therapy? Of course, starving women made them hungry, but that’s the purpose of Torazin. If they continue to inject antipsychotics to calm them down, they can sail immediately. So, what happened in the research? What do even these results do?
However, another study skipped Torazine. Participants fasted for 10 days, but were kept in bed all day on an “absolute bed rest.” They are completely isolated and “prohibited from meeting other people except attendees and nurses, and have also denied access to television, radio, newspapers or other information.” Therefore, it is impossible to tease the effects of the fasting component alone if people get better or worse. However, as you can see here, researchers reportedly found at 2:56 in my video that was proven effective in 31 of the 31 patients suffering from depression, and that they were clearly better.
Researchers concluded that fasting therapy could provide an alternative to the use of antidepressant drugs. People are very relieved to be able to eat again, get out of their lonely confinement, and then get out of bed and report they feel better. But that was when I was discharged from the hospital. How did they feel the following week, the following month? Fasting is by definition unsustainable, so what you would ideally want to see is some kind of long-term effect.
The researchers followed up hundreds of patients a few years later, not months later. Of the 69 people who were clearly struggling with depression, 90% reported feeling good or good at the end of the 10-day speed, and surprisingly, years later, 87% of the 62 people who answered claimed they were still doing well. There were no control groups now, so I don’t know if they would do the same without fasting or anything more. It was all self-reporting. who knows? Maybe they feared that if they didn’t respond positively, they would be sent back to loneliness. We don’t know, but there is good evidence on the benefits of short-term mood.
Why does fasting improve the feelings of depression? In addition to the endorphins and surges of the so-called happiness hormone serotonin, when we fast, there is a rise in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is thought to play an important role in mood disorders. Researchers have cheered rodents with it, but we are not mice or mice. How about us? People with major depression have low levels of BDNF in their bloodstream. Autopsy studies of suicide victims show only about half of BDNF in certain major brain regions, but compared to controls, it has been suggested that they may play a significant role in suicidal behavior, as seen in my video.
Antidepressants and electroshock can boost BDNF. You can also strengthen it with calorie restriction. As shown below, you can increase your level by 70% after three months of reducing 25% of your calories from your daily diet, as shown at 4:51.
Is there anything I can add to my diet to increase my BNDF levels? Next we’ll understand.
