Neuroscientist
Claims:
Fasting
Works Miracles
On
Your Brain & Body But
Big
Pharma Won’t Tell You.
(M.
Javed Naseem)
‘If people fast,
the food industry loses money.
What about the
pharmaceutical industries?
What if people do
some intermittent fasting,
exercise periodically
and are very healthy,
is the
pharmaceutical industry going to
make any money on
healthy people?’
--- Dr. Mark
Mattson, PhD
Fasting is extremely
beneficial for your physical and spiritual well-being. Unfortunately,
the biased media has dubbed it as a Muslim religious ritual
(referring to Ramadan) only thus taking away all the health benefits
your body can derive from it. Fasting is good for the body and the
soul. It’s not only materially beneficial, it’s also a godly act.
It’s good for the entire mankind though it’s obligatory for
Muslims only. But all scriptures show that all messengers or prophets
of God (like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc.) used to fast; and their
followers did the same. The Quran says that fasting was as well
obligatory for all other nations as it is obligatory for Muslims.
‘Fasting shifts
stem cells from a dormant
state to a state
of self-renewal. It triggers
stem cell based
regeneration of an organ
or system.’ –
Study
In some narrations of
Hadith, it is said that the Prophet (s.a.w.) used to fast twice a
week (every Monday and Thursday) in addition to the three days (13th,
14th and 15th) of every month (apart from
Ramadan). This kind of fasting is called ‘intermittent fasting’
(i.e., not continuous).
‘Fasting twice a
week could significantly
lower the risk of
developing both
Parkinson’s and
Alzheimer’s disease.’
-- Neuroscientists
What Prophet Muhammad
(s.a.w.) recommended 14 centuries ago, is being discovered and
researched by modern world today. Modern medical science has come up
with the proof that fasting, especially intermittent fasting, works
miracles on your body, especially the brains. But the money-making
Big Pharma is not interested in supporting and researching such a
study. They would lose most of their clients. They want people to
stay sick and suffer from all kinds of illnesses so that they could
make money by selling drugs in the name of treatment. This is a
trillion-dollar business.
When health becomes a
business, the only consideration is to boost the profits. If people
are healthy, doctors and Big Pharma would not make big money. Simple!
“Intermittent
fasting enhances the ability
of nerve cells
to repair DNA.” – Study
Following are excerpts
from an article by Arjun Walia, published December 11, 2015, by
Collective Evolution:
Neuroscientist
Shows
What
Fasting Does To Your Brain, And
Why
Big Pharma Won’t Study It!
Below is a TEDx talk given
by Mark Mattson, the current Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience
at the National Institute on Aging. He is also a professor of
Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University, and one of the foremost
researchers in the area of cellular and molecular mechanisms
underlying multiple neuro-degenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s
and Alzheimer’s disease.
I chose to include ‘Big
Pharma’ in the title because that’s exactly what it is. There
have been countless examples of the manipulation of published
research at the hands of pharmaceutical companies in recent years.
This is why
Harvard Professor of Medicine Arnold Symour Relman told the
world that the medical profession has been bought by the
pharmaceutical industry.
It’s why
Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief of The Lancet, recently
stated that much of the scientific literature published today is
simply untrue.
It’s why Dr.
Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal
of Medicine, said that the “pharmaceutical industry likes to
depict itself as a research-based industry, as the source of
innovative drugs. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”
And it’s why
John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the Stanford University School
of Medicine, published an article titled “Why
Most Published Research Findings Are False” which
subsequently became the most widely accessed article in the
history of the Public Library of Science (PLoS).
I also chose to mention
‘Big Pharma’ because of Dr. Mattson’s comments towards the end
of the video:
“Why is it that the
normal diet is three meals a day plus snacks? It isn’t that it’s
the healthiest eating pattern, now that’s my opinion but I
think there is a lot of evidence to support that. There are a lot of
pressures to have that eating pattern, there’s a lot of money
involved. The food industry — are they going to make money from
skipping breakfast like I did today? No, they’re going to lose
money. If people fast, the food industry loses money. What
about the pharmaceutical industries? What if people do some
intermittent fasting, exercise periodically and are very healthy? Is
the pharmaceutical industry going to make any money on healthy
people?”
(Dr. Mark Mattson) |
Mark and his team
have published several papers that discuss how fasting twice a week
could significantly lower the risk of developing both Parkinson’s
and Alzheimer’s disease.
“Dietary changes have
long been known to have an effect on the brain. Children who suffer
from epileptic seizures have fewer of them when placed on caloric
restriction or fasts. It is believed that fasting helps kick-start
protective measures that help counteract the overexcited signals that
epileptic brains often exhibit. (Some children with epilepsy have
also benefited from a specific high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.)
Normal brains, when overfed, can experience another kind of
uncontrolled excitation, impairing the brain’s function, Mattson
and another researcher reported in January in the journal Nature
Reviews Neuroscience.”
Fasting does good things
for the brain, and this is evident by all of the beneficial
neuro-chemical changes that happen in the brain when we fast. It also
improves cognitive function, increases neuro-trophic factors,
increases stress resistance, and reduces inflammation.
Fasting is a challenge to
your brain, and your brain responds to that challenge by adapting
stress response pathways which help your brain cope with stress and
risk for disease. The same changes that occur in the brain during
fasting mimic the changes that occur with regular exercise. They both
increase the production of protein in the brain (neuro-trophic
factors), which in turn promotes the growth of neurons, the
connection between neurons, and the strength of synapses.
“Challenges to your
brain, whether it’s intermittent fasting [or] vigorous exercise
. . . is cognitive challenges. When this happens
neuro-circuits are activated, levels of neuro-trophic factors
increase, that promotes the growth of neurons [and] the formation
and strengthening of synapses. . . .”
Fasting can also stimulate
the production of new nerve cells from stem cells in the hippocampus.
He also mentions ketones (an energy source for neurons), and how
fasting stimulates the production of ketones and that it may also
increase the number of mitochondria in neurons. Fasting also
increases the number of mitochondria in nerve cells; this comes as a
result of the neurons adapting to the stress of fasting (by producing
more mitochondria).
By increasing the
number of mitochondria in the neurons, the ability for nerons to form
and maintain the connections between each other also increases,
thereby improving learning and memory ability.
“Intermittent fasting
enhances the ability of nerve cells to repair DNA.”
He also goes into the
evolutionary aspect of this theory – how our ancestors adapted and
were built for going long periods of time without food.
A study published in the
June 5 issue of Cell Stem Cell by researchers from the
University of Southern California showed that cycles of
prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and, moreover,
induce immune system regeneration. They concluded that fasting shifts
stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal. It
triggers stem cell based regeneration of an organ or system.
A scientific review of
multiple scientific studies regarding fasting was published in The
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2007. It examined a
multitude of both human and animal studies and determined that
fasting is an effective way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular
disease and cancer. It also showed significant potential in treating
diabetes.
(Courtesy: www.collective-evolution.com/2015/12/11/neuroscientist-shows-what-fasting-does-to-your-brain-why-big-pharma-wont-study-it)
(Courtesy: www.collective-evolution.com/2015/12/11/neuroscientist-shows-what-fasting-does-to-your-brain-why-big-pharma-wont-study-it)
Editor’s (M. Javed
Naseem) Note:
I have been fasting
regularly at least twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) for more than
10 years now. I walk 5-6km at least 4-5 times a week. I am 70+ years
and feel great. I have not seen a doctor in decades (except for some
dental work and an operation of Hernia, or a normal eye-test every
two years). I don’t take medication. I drink a lot of herbal,
ginger, green, black and other Tea. I use dates, olive oil with a
small piece of whole-wheat bread, an apple, an orange, a banana and
milk in my breakfast (of course Tea too .. lol). I mostly avoid red
meat and use a lot of fish and turkey meat; no more chicken. For more
than 20 years now, I have been eating only twice a day – the
breakfast and the main meal at sunset (Maghrib). I have no
physical/health problems! Alhamdo-lillah! (Thank God!). Now good luck
to you! God bless!
**********
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