Fasting/refeeding stem cell stimulation experiment

Valter Longo of USC has been doing research on fasting/refeeding cycles, most of the data are from mice with a few small scale human trials (feasibility studies, really).

The interesting thing is that many body systems, like heart, liver & immune systems shrink during fasting, but upon refeeding stem cells are activated to rebuild the shrunken systems, as if from a much younger being. For example, immune cells are created that are no longer autoimmune. Now not all cells are killed but there are a percentage that are like new. The fasting upregulates autophagy, apoptosis and mitophagy.

I wondered what would happen if I experimented with this. I am not suggesting anyone should follow my lead. This is not settled science by any means!

In this paper <[www.cell.com] they describe the heart as shrinking & getting rebuilt. I wondered if this might benefit my afib. I recall a post here about work done in the UK several years ago about injecting stem cells into the heart and it had a positive impact on afib.

As to testing afib effect, I sometimes monitor myself during sleep with beat to beat recording heart rate monitor. Since I first started doing this years ago, there are sleep cycles which might increase the heart rate by 15 – 20 BPM for a number of seconds. PAC’s are very common during these cycles. If I see few or no PAC’s I will think I’ve done some good. Haven’t figured out another way to test yet, except perhaps go off my mag supplements and see what happens. I will wait a while – many cycles – before and if I do this.

In this paper <[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] they describe regeneration in the immune system.

From what I can see their "Ah Ha" moment was fasting (3-4 day) & refeeding (till they regained their weight) cancer model mice while giving them chemo. After the 6th or 7th cycle, they noticed the white blood cell count and quality was like that of a young mouse. So the idea that fasting upregulates autophagy, apoptosis & mitosis. Many of the body organs & immune systems shrink. When refeeding occurs stem cells activate and rebuild the shrunken organs and immune system - like new. So that some of the parts of the immune system that were autoimmune get destroyed and recreated without the autoimmune component. I think this is amazing.

I've been playing with this, not knowing what results I'd see. Since I eat 1x/day (22:2 IF), if I skip eating for four days, it turns into a 120 hour (5 day fast). I then chose a 10 day refeeding period. On my refeed, I'm eating somewhat more protein and animal protein than Gundry recommends - trying to trigger the TOR & IGF-1 pathways into their rebuild mode, also more of the carby resistant starches. Otherwise I'm eating our normal Gundry <[www.afibbers.org] program, which is high fat, but low sat fat & low lectin (no grains, legumes, nightshades or seeded vegetables). Gundry also has a new book <[www.afibbers.org] These IGF-1 and TOR pathways are obviously downregulated during the 120 hour fast. Longo calls these modes different "programs." Program A (fasting, protecting cells, upregulating apoptosis & etc), Program B - growth & reproduction.

So far I've had two fasting cycles and am 1 day into the third fasting cycle. I plan on continuing for at least 8 cycles. I winged it picking the length of fasts & refeeds. In his MS study on humans, they used a 7 day fast and are talking about one fast every two months. What I've noticed is my lifelong nasal congestion has improved dramatically. Going Gundry Matrix helped, but this is much better. Not sure how I'll test other things.

As to activity, I found I could ski my normal 34k' vertical off piste on day two (starting 40 hours fasted) of a fast. Day 5 I was not as spiffy. I could still do it, but my volume was less and I could tell I lacked energy. On the other hand, skiing was normal the day after one meal of refeed. Of course I'm well keto-adapted. On day five of my first fasting cycle, my serum ketones were at 6.7 mmol/L, breath ketones were about 70 and urine ketones at 80 mg/dL. Also blood sugar drops into the 50's.

<[www.youtube.com] Longo TEDx - good intro.
<[www.youtube.com] Longo - Rhonda Patrick interview - more details
<[patents.justia.com] Longo patents a lot of the data from studies behind paywalls are in the patents
<[prolonfmd.com] More of his papers from the Prolon FMD food site

Longo decided to do the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) because it took years to get 18 subjects to fast with doctor's approval in the fasting/cancer chemo study. Thought this would be easier. All the details of the FMD are in the patents.

Gundry has a FMD diet plan that approximates Longo's, from real food, in his second <[www.amazon.com] book. As usual, I want a stronger signal so am just water fasting.

As to how these pathways play out in lower creatures. These Rhonda Patrick interviews with two scientists from the Buck Institute are interesting <[www.youtube.com] Judith Campisi, <[www.youtube.com] Gordon Lithgow

While I think intermittent fasting is powerful. I think that multiple cycles of many day fasting/refeeding with regeneration of systems from stem cells is much more powerful.

Excellent fasting reference from Toronto nephrologist Jason Fung: [www.amazon.com]

Brief article on fasting to rebuild immune system <[www.telegraph.co.uk]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2017 02:33PM by GeorgeN.

Looks like Marco Perez at Stanford is looking at stem cells & afib <[www.afibbers.org]

George:

Do you think that your fasting and eating only once a day along with your mag. intake has all helped in your control of AF?

I know that eating too much in the late evening has led to some AF episodes for me.

Liz



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/2017 03:27PM by Elizabeth.

Liz,

For me, afib control has 3 components:

1. don't train or do long duration endurance exercise (as this plus genetics brought me to the afib party) - my limits here are actually pretty high
2. keep well repleted with magnesium
3. keep calcium intake very moderate.

At least in the short term, I could likely eat & drink (including alcohol) anything in any quantity and it would not be a trigger for me. In the story I've told before where I stress ate wheels of brie during my divorce, my control got much worse and things that were not before and are not now became triggers. This included indigestion, cold drinks, being prone on my left side, the time after orgasm when heart rate drops rapidly among others.

I look at electrolyte balance as the base of my control. When I do this well, I have few limits. I can and do exercise a lot, but if I overdo it, it can be a vagal trigger. For example, 14 months ago I was skiing on a powder day. I felt really good and decided to add hiking on my skis to get more elevation on each lap. Hiking up a steep slope at 12,500-13,000' on skis is an endurance activity. I exceeded my limit and after getting home & eating dinner, I had an afib episode - my shortest on record, 10 minutes conversion after I took 300 mg of flec and 400 mg of magnesium as citrate powder.

I started down the path of diet, fasting & all that after reading a paper that Hans posted and wrote about a number of years ago. It was a very long term (30 year) study of afibbers in Olmstead County MN (where the Mayo clinic is located). It compared paroxysmal afibbers with people in the general population. Amazingly the afibbers were healthier and lived somewhat longer. Likely because most came to afib via fitness. However I noticed in the study that, over time, the afibbers got all the metabolic diseases and became metabolically ill like the controls. I told myself - that is not going to be me. Also many afibbers that get the illness later in life have many metabolic comorbidities. These lead to higher CHADS (and later variations) scores which lead to higher stroke risk and the need for anticoagulation.

George

George,

Please keep posting on this subject. I am fascinated by your dedication but also your scientific approach and of course, your results. I remember reading about research on restricted calorie diets years back, being done by professor and his daughter at a California school, forget where, but fascinating stuff. How do your calories end up averaging out on a per day basis - do you track that?

Best,

C

Hi George - thanks for detailing this. Hugely interesting for many reasons. Your results are impressive.

Great info!

Be well,
Jackie

Clay,

In March I did a detailed 14 day food diary using a gram scale and chronometer.com for an engineer in Australia who is developing a nutrient optimizer. This was prior to my fasting cycles. I have now upped animal protein and carbs when I eat (to activate stem cell rebuilding), though these would likely still be low by most standards. These numbers do not include supplements, which I do for targeted items. Based on this I did some things to change some ratios & etc.

Item Average Minimum Maximum
Energy (kcal) 2167.46 1800.55 2495.41
Protein (g) 52.04 34.61 69.84
Carbs (g) 122.11 87.89 179.42
Fiber (g) 51.30 44.36 66.14
Starch (g) 21.20 6.71 89.95
Sugars (g) 32.14 23.98 41.24
Fat (g) 175.04 142.54 212

Alcohol (g) 2.54 0 12.55
Caffeine (mg) 0.00 0 0
Water (g) 622.98 445.35 773.52

B1 (Thiamine) (mg) 1.19 0.91 1.41
B12 (Cobalamin) (µg) 0.93 0.02 2.71
B2 (Riboflavin) (mg) 0.89 0.67 1.34
B3 (Niacin) (mg) 11.61 9.58 15.25
B5 (Pantothenic Acid) (mg) 4.21 2.81 6.32
B6 (Pyridoxine) (mg) 1.70 1.44 1.95
Folate (µg) 406.98 344.87 557.13
Vitamin A (IU) 16220.42 8833.64 23275.53
Vitamin C (mg) 167.20 134.14 276.99
Vitamin D (IU) 27.12 3.8 109
Vitamin E (mg) 11.59 8.33 15.12
Vitamin K (µg) 548.42 261.95 721.71

Calcium (mg) 520.59 348.26 939.59
Copper (mg) 2.63 2.23 3.03
Iron (mg) 14.32 11.61 18.14
Magnesium (mg) 379.36 270.65 503.56
Manganese (mg) 6.83 4.43 9.29
Phosphorus (mg) 966.31 652.11 1175.25
Potassium (mg) 3173.72 2654.91 3653.9
Selenium (µg) 41.28 18.84 102.33
Sodium (mg) 2919.60 2311.04 4035.77
Zinc (mg) 7.56 5.03 10.11


Cholesterol (mg) 131.60 0 483.26
Monounsaturated (g) 88.31 67.01 111.87
Omega-3 (g) 2.95 1.08 3.83
Omega-6 (g) 24.74 19.46 29.14
Polyunsaturated (g) 37.79 27.09 45.7
Saturated (g) 24.63 19.44 31.58
Trans-Fats (g) 0.02 0 0.06

Cystine (g) 0.57 0.39 0.87
Glycine (g) 1.85 1.19 3.39
Histidine (g) 1.01 0.64 1.5
Isoleucine (g) 1.71 1.04 2.81
Leucine (g) 2.94 1.78 5.02
Lysine (g) 2.27 1.21 4.7
Methionine (g) 0.71 0.37 1.49
Phenylalanine (g) 1.84 1.14 2.81
Threonine (g) 1.59 0.99 2.5
Tryptophan (g) 0.48 0.3 0.75
Tyrosine (g) 1.13 0.58 2
Valine (g) 2.06 1.34 3.08

George

Clay,

Was that Roy Walford? <[en.wikipedia.org] He was Longo's mentor a UCLA.

What Longo says caloric restriction (typically 20 or 30% less than normal) is the upregulation of autophagy, apoptosis & mitophagy followed by the rebuilding of structures from stem cells.

Caloric restriction (CR) is effective for extending lifespan.

It turns out you can get most or all of the benefit of CR by restricting total protein and specifically leucine, iso-leucine & methionine. Also excess sugar or processed carbs. This downregulates IGF-1 & TOR or mTOR.

George

Yes, it must have been Roy Walford. I remember him collaborating with his daughter, who was also a yoga instructor, and that fits Lisa Walford. Fascinating research - please keep us posted!

Hi Clay,

In an unusual twist. I posted a link to this thread in another discussion group. A man piped up and said he was doing the same thing (fasting/refeeding), for afib. However he's had a cardioversion which failed after a short time. He's in persistent afib. He's seen some improvement. He's trying to see if this will fix his afib out of the persistent mode. A much more difficult case than mine. He says he will give it six months before considering ablation. I've asked him to stay in contact and let me know how it goes. If he is successful it will be real news!

George

Hi George,

For what it's worth.
I have been intermittent fasting for some years with the 5-2 diet.
I eat 2000 calories for 5 days and 600 on the other two.
My fast days are Monday and Thursday.
What I found was that when ever I got afib, it was on a day after a fast day, not every time of course.
I probably have 6 to 8 events a year now. I use PIP which cuts the duration down to about 2 hours.

I have up the calories on a fast day to 800 and that has made a differance.
I always feel good after a fast day and it keeps my weight in check.


Colin

Glad to have a fellow passenger on this train of thought.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Quote
TomSeest
Glad to have a fellow passenger on this train of thought.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Hi Tom,

We will be very interested in your progress!

George