Study: Fasting for Three Days can Regenerate the Entire Immune System of Humans

Study: Fasting for Three Days can Regenerate the Entire Immune System of Humans 

Researchers at the University of Southern California have announced that fasting for as little as three days, can regenerate the entire human immune system for a very healthy living.
The researchers described their study as “remarkable and a major breakthrough” in finding natural methods to boost the immune system.



In the past, fasting diets have been criticized by nutritionists for being unhealthy. However, this new study by the Americans suggests that starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection. The researchers said their discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy. Elderly people, too, are said to benefit greatly from the study.

As people grow, their immune system becomes weak, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases. As per this study, fasting could help them get their immune system back on track.
Fasting for 72 hours also protects cancer patients against the toxic impact of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy saves lives, but it also causes significant collateral damage to the immune system. The results of this study suggest that fasting may mitigate some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy.
Detailing the study, the researchers said fasting “flips a regenerative switch” that prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, essentially regenerating the entire immune system.
Lead researcher of the study Professor Valter Longo, who serves as professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California, said the study proved that fasting could indeed help the human body to produce a new immune system.

It gives the ‘OK’ for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system. And the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting. Now, if you start with a system heavily damaged by chemotherapy or ageing, fasting cycles can generate, literally, a new immune system.” Professor Longo said.
At the Experimentation stage of the study, some people were asked by the researchers to regularly fast for between two and four days over a period of six months.
The researchers then found that the fasting helped to produce a new immune system, as well as reducing the enzyme PKA, a hormone which increases cancer risk and tumor growth that is linked to ageing.
Professor Longo expressed how the research team became surprised upon realizing the outcome of their experiment: “What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. So we started thinking, well, where does it come from?”
The study said prolonged fasting not only forces the body to use stores of glucose and fat, but it also breaks down a significant portion of white blood cells. During each cycle of fasting, this depletion of white blood cells induces changes that trigger stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells.
“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system. When you starve, the system tries to save energy and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged,” Professor Longo added.
With the study having been experimented already, more clinical trials will be able to determine other factors. If that is done, one can see a physician for an appropriate fasting recommendation.
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Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, and kindles the true light of chastity. Enter again into yourself.
— St Augustine

Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you.
— Didache

When a man begins to fast, he straightway yearns in his mind to enter into converse with God.
— St Isaac the Syrian

Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself.
— St Peter Chrysologus

When the stomach is full it is easy to talk of fasting.
— St Jerome

Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor man, take pity on him. If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye, and the ear, and the feet, and the hands, and all the members of our bodies.
— St John Chrysostom

We must fast with our whole heart, that is to say, willing, wholeheartedly, universally and entirely.
— St Francis de Sales

God hides the prize of eternal glory in our mortifications and in the victory of ourselves, which we always strive for with great gentleness.
— St Jane Frances Chantal

The scripture is full of places that prove fasting to be not the invention of man but the institution of God, and to have many more profits than one. And that the fasting of one man may do good unto another, our Saviour showeth himself where he saith that some kind of devils cannot be cast out of one man by another “without prayer and fasting.” And therefore I marvel that they take this way against fasting and other bodily penance.
— St Thomas More

Fasting is most intimately connected with prayer. For the mind of one who is filled with food and drink is so borne down as not to be able to raise itself to the contemplation of God, or even to understand what prayer means.”
— Catechism of the Council of Trent

 

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