Fasting Mimicking Diet To Live Longer, Get Leaner and Healthier

On this episode of the Anti-Aging Hacks podcast, we discuss the fasting mimicking diet to live longer (possibly) along with it’s many other benefits.

Dr. Joseph Antoun is the CEO and Chairman of the Board of L-Nutra, a unique Nutri-tech company leading the Food as Medicine movement by applying cutting edge Science to Nutrition research first to uncover what humans should eat to live healthier longer and second to help patients achieve better health outcomes

Dr Antoun passion is to enhance human longevity by nurturing a true healthcare system alongside the current sick care system.

Dr Joseph’s Background

• Was frustrated by the “sick care” model of health
• Met with Dr. Valter Longo, who had developed the fasting mimicking diet
• Decided to join and lead the company L-Nutra

Different Types of Fasting

• Less than 2 days is called intermittent fasting
• More than 2 days is called periodic fasting
• Interesting fact: 12% of US adults are practicing fasting
• Fasting is the natural way humans lived for most of our existence during periods of fasting and feasting

What is Autophagy?

• Autophagy occurs when cells restructure to the stress of no food
• Autophagy won the nobel prize in medicine in 2016
• Your body starts to recycle components (proteins, organelles, cell structures) to make a leaner machine that can survive the oncoming harsh conditions
• Your body may also get stem cells to proliferate
• If you’re pretty thin and don’t have a lot of reserves, and you exercise in the morning – autophagy may start in 14-16 hours
• If you’re overweight, have lots of reserves, haven’t worked out, then it may take until day 2
• For the first two days, it’s a metabolic adjustment. After 2 days, its a deep cellular plus additional metabolic adjustment

What Is Caloric Restriction?

• When you reduce caloric intake by 10-40%
• The mice studies were very promising
• The chimpanzee studies were conflicting
• The human study was done by Roy Walford – but it wasn’t a big success
• Joseph believes that long term caloric restriction is harmful to the body and it keeps you in a depleted state
• Fasting Mimicking Diet gets the benefits of caloric restriction in an acute way

The mTOR Pathway And Relation To Aging

• The mTOR pathway tells the cell that the body is nourished – it can grow
• To grow means it speeds up aging
• The TOR pathway has two sub-paths TOR1 and TOR2
• Rapamycin and other rapalogs are being tested to slow down this pathway and thus possibly slow down aging

What About Stem Cells?

• L-Nutra has noticed stem cell regeneration in mice
• The body may be able to shed older cells and regenerate cells – this was noticed in mice but the data is harder to measure in humans.
• They have noticed some mesenchymal stem cells in humans – but cannot make claims in this regard. Will wait for more data.

Water Only Vs. Fasting Mimicking Diet To Live Longer

• Professor Longo realized the benefits of water-only fasting
• He realized 5 days of water-only fasting was really hard for humans
• They developed a unique fasting mimicking diet that would nourish body while also mimicking the benefits of fasting
• The goal of the fast is to keep growth pathways subdued, IGF low, mTOR low so that you can realize the benefits of a water-only fast
• These unique design allows you to utilize the fasting mimicking diet to live longer and healthier

What Is Allowed During The Fast

• 5 days of food packaged into small packets to eat
• Update: can do one cup of black coffee per day
• The fast does not have any meat because animal amino acids can trigger a growth state

What About The Refeeding Protocol?

• The first day after the diet, you want to eat liquid and lean foods
• Gives your body to time to adjust to the gut microbiome
• Joseph recommends piscetarian and flexitarian diet after the fast

What About Skin Aging?

• The team has developed a protocol and is starting a skin trial for humans
• They have seen animals rejuvenate skin
• More data to come on skin

How Often To Do Fasting Mimicking Diet To Live Longer?

• If you are middle age and healthy, then doing it once a quarter works great
• If you have a health objective in mind or weight loss, then do it once a month a few times in a row. After this, can go back into a maintenance protocol for 3-4 times a year.

Other Tips For Anti-Aging and Longevity

• Stop eating late at night to prevent the insulin and glucose surge
• Feel and give love – and have a great social circle

Where To Find The Website

• Go to L-Nutra to get more information

If you’re interested in daily intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding, check out my interview on this topic with Gin Stephens or Melanie Avalon.