In 2003, the famous stunt
artist David Blaine spent 44 days without food suspended in
a transparent box above London. “I also didn’t go to the
bathroom for a month and a half.” “What?” Though Blaine’s stunt pales in comparison to
the Scottish Man Angus Barbieri who entered the Guiness Book of World Records in
1971 for surviving a year long fast. So, what happened to Blaine and Angus?
In this video, we’ll take a look at what happens to the brain, organs and muscles
and hormones when you go without food for longer and longer … 12 hours to 2
days to a week or even several months. “And as the weeks draw on, doctors say
he’s shown the first signs of starvation.” Fasting is very popular recently
because of the huge health and cognitive benefits to be had from
even one or two days of fasting. After a day of fasting, you start getting very
high pulses in growth hormone levels throughout the day. Your hunger hormone ghrelin also go
down. Over 48 hours of fasting, the protein called Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor which
literally makes the brain grow increases 3.5 fold. Over a 72 hour fast, the fat storage
hormone insulin drops quite a bit. But, fasting hype isn’t new at all. More
than 100 years ago in 1911, Upton Sinclair published a popular book called the Fasting Cure
where he reports on multiple miraculous health improvements from various people’s multiple day
fasts, with some fasting longer than a month. By 1972, the Soviets had developed what the LA
times called a cure for just about anything: eating nothing for 30 days. Some research has found fasting to significantly boost mood
and be effective for anxiety and depression. So while David Blaine was sitting in
that glass box with nothing to do, his body was doing a lot. After
about 8 hours without food, his body would shift to mostly rely on the stored
sugar or glucose stored in his liver for energy… and David would start to be getting
pretty hungry.(BMC) But he only has so much glucose stored in the liver to maintain his
blood sugar, so what happens when he runs out? Well I can actually find out that
out for myself by stabbing this thing into my arm and then I’ll eat
nothing for 2 and a half days. This thing on my tricep is called a continuous
glucose monitor because it continuously monitors my glucose - my blood sugar. I've been fasting
for about 63 hours now so let's take a look at my blood sugar. So as you can see… my blood
sugar while I was sleeping was relatively flat. But then when I woke up, it went up a little
bit, even though I haven’t eaten anything. If we look at my blood sugar for the whole
64 hours I fasted, you can see it fluctuated a lot … here it spiked up when I went
to the gym. But… it only takes about 28 hours to use up all the glucose stored in my
liver … so, where’s the glucose coming from? One reason my blood sugar didn’t go down and
down to zero is because the body can make the small amount of glucose it needs. But wait a minute, this couldn’t be good for
the brain because it needs tons of energy… At the same I was depleting my glucose stores,
my body started to generate an alternative fuel source - ketones. Ketones are such a great source
of energy for the body that when you’re fasting, 2/3rds of the brain’s energy
needs are met by entirely ketones, the other 1/3rd comes from
the glucose your body makes. Ketones in fact are considered to be the most
energy efficient fuel for our bodies , providing more energy per unit oxygen used. Considering
the brain is the most energy intensive organ, demanding 20% of the body’s energy budget,
more energy bang for your buck is great news. The interesting thing about these ketones
is that they’re not just a replacement fuel but they're really beneficial to the brain.
As mentioned before, after 48 hours of fasting, levels of the protein BDNF increase 3.5 fold. BDNF
is a potent stimulator of growth in the brain. Dr John Ratey explains in his book Spark that
when researchers sprinkled BDNF onto brain cells in a petri dish, the cells automatically
started to grow and sprout new branches. This kind of structural growth is necessary for
learning and essentially improves brain function. “BDNF, which I call Miracle
Gro for the brain.” In fact, BDNF is associated with cognitive improvement
and improvements in depression and anxiety. And, this paper explains that a stimulator
ofBDNF release is ketone bodies. Here’s a paper that looked at 1422 people who
fasted for 4 to 21 days. What’s interesting is I think most people would be concerned
about their mental or emotional state while fasting - suspecting a long fast would make
them progressively more hungry and irritated, unfocused or drained of energy.
However, for over a 1000 people, emotional well being significantly increased
over 5, 10, 15 and even 20 days of fasting.
So by day 5 in David Blaine’s fast,
he may have been feeling actually pretty good. Several people, myself
included, have reported that sometime after day 4 and as early as day 3 of a fast,
they feel especially focused and present with a lot of energy. This paper from before reports
that sometime between days 2 and 7 of a fast, there is an improvement in depressive symptoms
- people experience an improvement in mood, alertness and even a sense of tranquility. This
may be due to very high ketone levels. Normally in people not eating a ketogenic diet, ketones are
quite low, most likely around 0.1 mmols but no higher than 0.5mmol. Mine after a weekend of very
un-ketogenic eating are 0.1mmol. But as you fast, ketones will steadily rise - by day 5 of a
fast, ketones peak, reaching as high as 7-10mmol Also by day 5, we should expect that David
Blaine wouldn’t have been hungry anymore, maybe starting even earlier than that. Going back to Upton Sinclair’s book “The Fasting
Cure,” he explains that it is part of the natural course of longer fasts for hunger to disappear by
day 3 or so. I’ve found this to be the case for me as well. He also says depending on the person
it can take days or weeks for hunger to return. In fact, the study looking at
1422 people fasting 4 to 21 days, found that hunger disappeared
for 93% of the people. This thing is a ketone ester, one of the worst
things I’ve tasted - basically drinkable ketones. Two things I’ve noticed from it: if I take enough,
it increases my focus and mood, a little bit like I had a cup of coffee. The other thing is
it takes my hunger away for a little while. Ketones are an appetite suppressant. This
paper found you can lower people’s feelings of hunger by having them drink ketones in
the form of a ketone ester, just like I did. Let’s take a quick look at longer fasts… Going back again to the study on over 1000
people fasting from 4 to 21 days, for 84% of the people who had health issues,
those issues improved from the fasting. One study found that a patient
essentially cured her diabetes with only two weeks of fasting. Another
severely obese woman cured her diabetes with four weeks of fasting. Now, that
woman regained all the weight she lost, but interestingly her diabetes stayed
in remission for over year after that, suggesting fasting could have had some beneficial
effects unrelated to the massive weight loss. Going back to the 1972 LA times article - a man in it named Vladimir reported to have cured
his arthritis with 45 days of fasting. But what happened to the Healthy David Blaine?
For David Blaine, it wasn’t all miracles
and ketogenic euphoria. He experienced heart palpitations, blurred vision and backaches.
Blaine lost a ton of weight during his fast: 24.5 kilos or 54 lbs, but according to the report
published about Blaine in the journal Nutrition, 42.4% of that was muscle and only
26.1% of that weight loss was fat. If you’re gonna fast as long as 44 days, you’re
going to lose some muscle, however if you wanted to lose as much muscle as possible, you’d probably
want to fast in the same way David Blaine did. Not being able to move around has
serious consequences for muscle. A 2016 study found that when healthy people
were eating a proper diet with ample protein, simply subjecting them to strict bed-rest for
a week had them lose a ton of muscle mass. On the other hand, a 2017 study had
men stop working out for 2 weeks… and simply allowing them to walk around
prevented them from losing any muscle. Tim Ferris wrote in his book “Tools of Titans”
that during his first clinically supervised 7 day fast they didn’t let him exercise
and he lost 12 pounds of muscle. However, when following a fasting protocol designed to get
him into ketosis as soon as possible - involving brisk walking for four hours, he claims to
have lost zero muscle mass on a ten day fast. As mentioned before, fasting raises growth
hormone… growth hormone decreases body fat, it increases bone density and
it helps you build up muscle and ketones also protect your
muscle from being broken down. A 1989 study found that simply injecting ketone
bodies into people not only prevented proteins from being broken down but the ketones increased
protein synthesis - both great things for muscle Not every aspect of fasting is good for muscle,
though. IGF-1 a key factor in muscle growth goes down and remains quite low over a 10 day fast.
But if you’re doing a fast, eating low carb before the fast and getting plenty of low
intensity exercise throughout the fast should help you get into ketosis quickly
and prevent you from losing much muscle. All this said, you can’t just fast
excessively long without consequences. According to a 1969 case report, a 20 year
old woman weighing 118kg or 260 pounds did a 210 day fast, in the process she
lost 60kg or 132 pounds. And she did survive a week of refeeding … but she
went on to die of a heart attack after that. The autopsy found that this extreme
fast had significantly atrophied her heart. This paper says that based on
observations made on fasting animals, once you get into ketosis, prolonged fasting
isn’t all that eventful - you basically along burning your body fat for energy. However, at
least in animals, when fat stores reach 10% of body weight the body enters
a dangerous stage where protein breakdown increases massively - and
the muscles and heart can waste away. …a couple sources say that you’re
really increasing your risk for negative consequences once you get
above 40 consecutive days of fasting. Before 1973 there had been recorded at least
4 other fasts longer than 210 days that did not end in heart attack like that 20 year
old woman. Perhaps these people had so much body fat that even after 210 days, they didn’t
reach that drastic muscle tissue wasting phase. In fact, Angus Barbieri’s 382 day fast was
relatively uneventful with the authors of his case report simply writing that “prolonged
fasting in this patient had no ill-effects.” Angus broke his fast with a boiled egg and a
slice of bread, and told reporters "[I] thoroughly enjoyed my egg and I feel very full".(S) During
the fast, Angus steadily lost weight at an average rate of about three quarters of a pound or one
third of a kilogram per day, losing a total of 276 pounds or 125 kilograms. And, what was huge
was that he kept the weight off. His fast took him from 456 lbs down to 180 lbs and 5 years
after the fast he still weighed only 196lbs. This is really interesting because on the other
hand, many of the participants in the Biggest Loser TV competition who frequently lose over 100
lbs … end up gaining back most or all that weight. “If you want 5 minutes of fame and drastic
weight loss that you’ll never keep off, then join the Biggest loser.” “Scientists followed contestants
from the TV show the biggest loser and they found that when the cameras
went off, the weight often came back on.” “And within about 4 or 5 years
I’d put back on all the weight.” A study done on their physiology
found that the intense exercise and caloric restriction that
had them lose plenty of weight left them with an abnormally a ravenous appetite.
(Clip 250,000 prize) “Germanakos faced big challenges
after returning home - telling Today I’m a morbidly obese person in a
fit body. I’m hungry all the time.” Now there’s a phenomenon where when in certain
people who lose weight, their hunger hormone ghrelin goes up, suggesting they become more
hungry. But when you fast, ghrelin goes down. And, it seems to be that ketone bodies are what prevent
ghrelin from going up when you lose weight. In fact, this 1968 paper claimed that after
2 weeks of fasting, obese people were able to be completely satisfied with a diet of
a mere 800 calories for another 2 weeks. It’s probably not reasonable to expect to
consistently have that much of a reduction in hunger, but this hunger lowering effect may be
thanks to reduced insulin. Dr. Robert Lustig says that insulin blocks your brain from picking up
on the leptin signal. Leptin is a hormone that essentially makes you feel full. “And that’s
what’s driving obesity. Insulin blocks leptin at the brain and makes you hungry. The higher
your insulin goes, the hungrier you get.” Dr. Lustig says that often in obesity,
people have very high leptin levels but that leptin signal is blocked by very
high insulin levels. When you fast, insulin drops a lot… so we should expect
people to get full more easily after a fast. The beauty of fasting is it’s so simple
… if you’re not sure how to do it, you can grab one of these instructional
T-Shirts in the description. … if you’ve never fasted before or are
taking medications, take it slow and see what a professional has to say
before you fast for many days at a time. I think for a while, not eating
anything has seemed kinda scary. “She hasn’t eaten anything
in 3 days! Is that true? You haven’t eaten anything in 3 days?”
In this Full House episode DJ is cautioned that not eating for 3 days will have
serious side effects on her health. “DJ, if you’re starving yourself, you
could do serious damage to your body.” This might not be the best example because DJ is
quite young, seems like she doesn’t know anything about fasting, and wasn’t approaching
fasting with the healthiest mentality but if she has enough extra weight that losing
weight would not harm her health, why is fasting for 3 days at a time in a healthy person assumed
to be such a dangerous way to lose weight? One thing I didn’t mention is that you can feel
bad or fatigued while fasting simply due to a lack of electrolytes. When you fast, insulin
goes down and the kidneys have you pee out a lot of electrolytes. Replacing them can make
you feel way better. That’s where this video’s sponsor LMNT comes in. As someone who fasts and
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