Fasting (2017) - full transcript

- Conventional
medicine didn't really play

much of a role in my
healing and in the end,

actually what healed me, how
I healed myself was through

a combination of eating
really high quality foods

and the combination of not eating at all.

We're looking for the quick fix.

We're looking for that magic
bullet and this is probably

as close to an easy,
simple, free magic bullet

that ever existed.

- I got more
mobility change in two days

of water fasting than I did
in three weeks of therapy



and my therapist, last
Thursday, my fourth day into it,

he says, "What are you doing?"

- The advice we give to cut a few calories

is a complete failure.

- If you compare a population
of people who never dieted

to a population of people who diet,

the dieters end up
weighing significantly more

than the non-dieters
five or 10 years later.

So we need to find new solutions.

- When someone does fasting,

it's very different than when
someone simply cuts calories.

- So when you fast,
you can look at studies

and you will see that
the basal metabolic rate

does not go down nearly as much
as the calorie restriction.



- There's always a sweet
spot for everything.

If you fast for too long, we will say,

if you got out more than say even 10 days,

your metabolism will slow and
that's what happens to people

if they try to cut calories
for a very long period of time.

Their metabolism slows and
when you start re-feeding,

you will regain the weight
and regain it very quickly.

- There's a difference in fat.

The fat that you carry around the waist

is much more dangerous for you.

This study was just published last year.

So if you look at truncal
fat mass calorie restriction

versus alternate daily fasting,

fasting was six times
better at getting rid

of the dangerous fat.

- My plan is to do a seven day fast.

In nine days, I've lost 18 pounds.

- I went seven days and
I've lost 20 pounds.

- I thought no way could I go this far

and not be hungry.

- Lots of people noticed
the past couple days

how thin that I look already.

I'm on day 21 of my 21 day
fast and I've lost 33 pounds.

- Your mind is more clear.

- You're actually gonna be more alert,

you're gonna have more
energy and more time.

- We've been skiing for three
hours and I haven't eaten

for six days and I feel plenty energized.

Woo Hoo!

I feel like I'm almost on
vacation by not eating.

- The ancient Greek mathematician,
Pythagoras, in fact,

he required his students
to fast before they came

into the classroom otherwise he thought

they wouldn't be smart
enough to figure out

what he was doing.

- So my mind feels as
good as it's ever felt.

- When you look at fasting,
it's gonna give you

the ability to do all those
things at a higher level

than you've ever done them before.

- A lot of people ask me,

"How do you stay so fit at 44 years old?"

And I quite simply look
'em in the eye and I say,

fast before fitness is the ticket.

- You're activating your body,

the sympathetic nervous
system, noradrenaline,

and growth hormone all
go up during a fast.

You actually can workout
harder than you've ever done.

- I've always worked
out on an empty stomach

in a fasted state.

- The challenges about
fasting is that there's

a lot of misinformation out there

and there are several different types.

- Whether you are talking
about an overnight fast

or you're talking about a 24 hour fast

or you're talking about a
five day or 10 day or 20 day,

people and journalists
and everybody likes to use

the same word, right?

And this is very confusing
because each turns on

a completely different process.

- This is happening now
in practices like mine

all over the country and in the world,

people learning and hopefully
will all communicate

and one of the beauties
of a film like this

is that it will bring
attention to the whole concept

of fasting 'cause so many
people know nothing about it.

- For the last 50 years,
we've told people,

eat six meals a day.

Eat the minute that you get up,

within 30 minutes of getting
up and make sure you eat

a bedtime snack so you don't get hungry.

The problem is when you start
eating the minute you get up

and don't stop eating until
the minute you go to bed,

you're constantly telling your body

to store food energy, right?

And you can either, only either
store it or burn it, right?

You can't do both at once.

- And even now, many personal
trainers and nutritionists

will tell, try to eat something
in every two to three hours

you are awake and if we
are awake for 18 hours,

then that's a long period of eating.

- The whole problem is
eating all the time.

So the very word itself, breakfast,

is the meal that breaks
your fast and it's actually

a very interesting word
because what it means

is that fasting is a
part of everyday life.

It's something you need
to do every single day

because it's the flip side of eating.

It's just the B side of eating.

There's nothing scary about fasting.

So if you fast for 12
hours and eat for 12 hours

or eat for 10 hours and fast
for 14 hours, for example,

you'll stay in balance and guess what?

That's what they did in 1960's America.

You can look back at surveys

and the average number of meals, 1977,

is three meals a day, right?

So I grew up in the 1970's.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner, nothing else.

Snacks?

No.

Guess what?

They're eating white bread.

There's no whole wheat pastas, right?

They're eating Oreo cookies.

They're eating ice cream but
there's very little obesity.

Now you go to 2005 and the
survey, the survey,

which is a large American
survey of a lot of things

including dietary habits,

says that we're eating six times a day.

So, again, look at my son's schedule -

breakfast, mid-morning snack,
lunch, after school snack,

dinner, hey, he's playing soccer,

there's snack between
the halves of soccer,

six times a day, every single day.

So he's giving his body
instructions to store fat

every minute of that waking
day and then we wonder

why is he gaining weight?

Well, there's no mystery.

You're eating all the time.

- We would never even
consider starting to cook

until 7:30 and we'd usually eat around 8.

- We might get home and eat
at eight or nine o'clock

and have a big meal at
eight or nine o'clock.

- And it was a grazing after
dinner that was going on.

- It's a length of time
that you let your body

kind of burn that food that you've taken.

That's basically it.

You're giving your body time to digest it.

- If you have them continue
their same type of food intake

and about the same number of calories

but you shrink that eating time down,

they will lose weight and
they'll feel satisfied

and they won't feel miserable
because we didn't put them

on a 1,600 calorie diet.

- I've not necessarily eaten well.

I've been overweight,
sometimes up to 200 pounds.

- Like everybody else, I've
gained a pound or two a year

since I was 30.

- About three years ago,

I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

My A1C was over 14 and I
had no idea that it was

out of control the way that it was.

I knew that I'd probably had
it based on the symptoms.

So I just tried to control
it with diet, medication,

but in the end, it just
wasn't working for me,

what I was doing so I decided
it was time to switch doctors,

got a recommendation to
Dr. Julie and it kinda,

she rocked my world.

- First came upon that
study, Dr. Panda's study,

it was very easy to understand.

It's so elegantly done
that someone who's not

in high level research
could understand this paper.

- Big gnarly study with a lot of detail,

tons of charts and graphs, big words,

I'm back and worth with Wikipedia,

took like four hours to
get through that study.

- They embrace the information
because it's something new

and it is a void in most
people's knowledge base

in terms of nutrition and
diet and it does sort of

dispel this myth that you
need to eat before bedtime

or you need to have protein before bedtime

to build muscle mass.

- So on the flight back to the west coast,

I read it again for 4 hours.

It was on that flight that
I said, I gotta try this.

- So the simple experiment
that we did was we took

exactly identical set of mice --

- One group was eating ad libitum.

So they got to eat their
food throughout the day

whenever they wanted to eat it and there,

both these groups are
on a super size me diet,

like that guy from that movie.

- I started with a high fat
diet because there are 11,000

research papers published so
far where animals or humans

are given this fatty
food and this fatty food

causes different diseases
starting from diabetes, obesity,

liver damage, cancer, and IBD,
inflammatory bowel disease,

et cetera.

- The lean mouse, without a doubt,

became obese, gained weight.

The lean mouse that was on
the time restricted regime

actually stayed lean and that's really

what caught my attention.

- So even though they eat
the same amount of calories,

at the end, the time
restricted mice are lean

compared to the ad lib fed mice.

- And they could stay progressively fitter

and all they had to do
was change when they eat,

not what they eat.

- Your body needs a daily
fasting period and that

eating erratically and kind
of eating all over the day

takes away from our body's natural rhythm

to say this is when we
eat, this is when we rest,

and it's hitting a manual override button.

- We work with a circadian rhythm.

Our bodies are on a clock basically

which is aligned with the 24
hour rotation of the earth.

- The circadian rhythm
and turning on and off

of more than 10,000 genes is
the largest regulatory network

that we know that exists in human.

- Circadian rhythms in
the liver, the pancreas,

and the fat cells get
tremendously disrupted

when you eat late at night or when you eat

for more than 12 hours during the day.

- So if the liver clock
tracks when we eat,

then forget about light/dark,

what we have to be more
careful about is when we eat

and when we fast.

- And we have to stay in beat with earth

in order to be healthy.

So we really should stop
eating by 7 P.M. at the latest

because their pancreas goes to sleep.

- Just before you wake up,
somewhere around 4 A.M.,

growth hormone, adrenaline and so on,

all get pumped up.

You're basically activating
yourself for the day.

So for all those people who say

you have to get up and eat

because you're not gonna have energy,

like your body has already prepared you

for everything you're gonna do.

You don't need to do it again.

And so during the day,

we need to be able to go out
and hunt and get our food

and do all those kinds of good things

so we need access to energy.

We need to be able to
metabolize energy quickly

and we need to be able to make
sugar as quickly as possible

and we also need to be able
to oxidize fats for energy.

- So at night, we can't
absorb the fat and the salt

and the sugar.

Your body just takes it and shoves it

right into a fat store.

- In the evening once
we get ready for bed,

our body switches to another
mode and the circadian rhythms

for processing energy go down
and the circadian rhythms

that help with the repair of
the body, finding cancer cells,

renewing all of the bodily systems kick in

and those are the
strongest during the night,

immune system function, et cetera.

If you eat during the night,

you disrupt all of those
mechanisms and so not only

are you predisposing yourself
to diabetes and obesity

and hypertension,

but you're also predisposing yourself

to a pro-inflammatory
condition throughout the body

which makes it easier
for cancer to take hold.

- If you're trying to repair a highway,

you have to stop the traffic.

So similarly our body cannot repair itself

if we continue to eat.

- The body makes less insulin
so for the same sugar load

that you would give
yourself during the day

that would not cause your blood
sugar to rise significantly,

for that same sugar load after
about seven or eight o'clock

at night will cause a significant
rise in your blood sugar

mimicking the effects of diabetes.

- It was a study that came
out in a neurology journal

that found if you were
giving artificial nutrition

in the hospital,

that patients did better
if you didn't give it

around the clock.

They gave the nutrition
in a shortened time frame,

they're connecting the
person back to the day cycle,

they have a better outcome.

- Just having weighed myself this morning,

two months now have
gone by and I've dropped

somewhere in the neighborhood of 29 pounds

just with Dr. Julie.

- It wasn't hard to do because it was just

a small habit change that
I had to ask them to make.

All they had to do was
apply this shortening

their total time of eating during the day.

Hi, Nina!

- Hi, Dr. Julie.

- How are you?

Good to see you.

- Good, how are you?

- Good!

Thanks for coming today.

So we're gonna go over your
blood test, is that right?

- And you had them drawn already.

- Perfect.

So when I have people come
in and they'll tell me,

"Well, my parents
have high blood pressure.

"So that's probably why I have it."

It's not always a genetically
inherited problem.

It's possibly a lifestyle
inherited problem

because we carry with
us the type of habits

that our parents brought us up to have

and if late night eating
and indulging slightly

on the weekends was
something that we saw them do

or that we were allowed to do growing up,

we're gonna carry that habit with us.

- And that first night was a struggle.

I remember getting off
my plane down in Burbank

and getting ready to take
an hour and a half drive

to Santa Barbara and thinking okay,

where am I gonna stop to get
something sweet for the road

and I went wait, it's past six o'clock.

- And I
found that the first week

was very uncomfortable.

I mean, I went to bed with
hunger pains and that's all

I could do to stay on this time
restricted eating time frame

was to go to bed early so
that I wouldn't feel hungry.

- And Dr. Julie
had given me the advice

that the first two weeks
were going to be very hard.

- After about a week,

those hunger pains completely went away.

- And she was right

but I was glad she shared that

because it prepared me.

- And then after that, it was no cravings.

So it was really strange
but cravings for food

later in the evening just went away.

Your liver tests look fantastic.

In fact, they were lower
than they were before

the previous time.

- Okay, I'm glad.

- Yeah.

So your fatty liver is
completely reversed.

You have totally normal liver enzymes.

- Okay.

- And you did it purely
by just lifestyle changes.

Within a couple of months,

you can have a reversal of fatty liver.

You can start seeing blood sugar changes

in less than two months.

I mean, it's like better than medicine!

Debra has a new patient to me.

- But my concern is that
I've been told I should take

blood pressure medicine to
control my blood pressure.

- Her one fear was being on
a blood pressure medicine

for the rest of her life.

- Yeah, I think it had gotten
in the 150's and 160's.

- And her blood pressure was running

in the hypertensive range so
she was running over 140's.

- Just didn't like the side effects.

I was falling asleep at the wheel.

- And she was given the
recommendation of trying

to just restrict her eating
time to about 11 or 12 hours

and two weeks later she came in

and her blood pressure was
normal, 120's to 130's systolic.

- My blood pressure read, I
don't know if you have it there,

it was 126 over --

- Over 70.

- Yes, it hasn't been that for awhile.

- It was beautiful!

And she came in again a few weeks later,

and her blood pressure was normal again.

It's like your daily medicine.

These medical conditions,

we should be thinking about
them as really symptoms, right?

I mean, it's really
not a medical condition

because it's totally reversible.

You noticed a sleep
improvement with adopting

this lifestyle change over
some of the other things

you had tried before.

- And a much sounder sleep.

- Yeah.

That's interesting 'cause I
hear people bring that up to me.

Potentially, she's not a
hypertensive patient any longer.

- I located Dr. Julie Wei-Shatzel

and I said I really, really
need to get this weight

under control.

It's out of control.

She said,

"Would you be interested I
participating in a study?"

- Trying to do now is expand the study.

The original study was done
in 150 adults in San Diego.

We are now running a worldwide study.

We have almost 9,000 users.

- She explained to me about
the circadian clock app.

- Now with the launch of
this app, My Circadian Clock,

we have close to 10,000
people who have downloaded.

- And I downloaded his app.

- And so I went through the
process of taking pictures

of the food that I ate
everyday and then also

making sure that I fasted
for a minimum of 12 hours

each night with dinner
being at six o'clock.

- First two weeks we ask
you to log everything

you currently do and then at
the end of those two weeks,

you get a summary of
everything that you've done.

It's kind of shocking to
see how much you forget

and when you look back and
have the hard evidence,

it's really helpful.

- Using that app is really, to me,

much more useful than
using something like Fitbit

because you're going to
maximize your circadian rhythm

and all of your organs
run on circadian rhythm.

- I think one of the exciting
things that we've seen

is that people are pretty
able to adapt to this style.

If you say, you can still
have that piece of cake

but you just can't eat it after 6 P.M.,

people are a lot more open to that

and they'll adjust when
they eat their types of food

and say, okay, you know what?

I can have it in the morning.

- Within about eight months

of about a 12 hour
fasting window everyday,

I found that my triglycerides had gotten

well below any number I had
been able to achieve previously

and I also found that
my A1C had also fallen

to the lowest point it had been in years.

- I realized so much benefit so fast.

In the first 90 days, I lost 11 pounds

and in 180 days, I lost 16 pounds.

I'm trim anyway.

I was 153 pounds when I started.

As I got through that, I wrapped
myself around the mantra of

don't change what you eat,
just change when you eat.

So I actually might've
started eating worse

and so I could've
confounded the study a little bit

by eating worse because
I felt like I could eat

whatever I wanted and I
was getting good results.

I wasn't dieting.

So after that study, I met with Satchin

and I asked him about that
and he kind of chuckled

and laughed and said, "No, Bill,
don't eat whatever you want

"but do control when you eat."

- My blood pressure was elevated.

I was on medication
for high blood pressure

as well as for cholesterol.

The past year, since using
time restricted feeding,

I have actually, I've lost 20 pounds,

my blood pressure is excellent
and I'm no longer taking

a statin drug.

- Implementing time
restricted feeding is an easy

first step to take.

It has no cost, it has no side effects,

and it feels so much better
than taking medication.

- In 2004, I decided to
take a personal challenge

and I was gonna try a triathlon.

I tried a half Ironman.

So that's a 50 mile bike
ride, a 1.6 mile swim,

and it was a 12.1 mile run.

My performance has degraded over the years

to where I'm doing just sprint triathlons.

That's 1/4 of that half Ironman.

You would've thought that
I would've progressed

to actually doing the full Ironman.

So I haven't.

Well, it turns out that
I have a cardio condition

where my heart beats super
rapidly and irregularly

but what'll happen is,

it'll beat at 250 to 300 beats a minute

and it's like a boat
cavitating a propeller,

it doesn't bite and so there's
no blood pumping through

my heart and I get all
lightheaded and I might pass out.

It can happen anywhere

and so I've progressively
been doing shorter and shorter

distance triathlons.

At the end of the study,

it was allowing me to
run longer and harder,

to ride farther and
faster and to swim longer

and more smoothly and so I
felt like this next triathlon,

I'll see how I do and I
went ahead and I signed up

for the Olympic, that's
a double sprint triathlon

and so the interesting short of it is,

no cardiac problems, completed
the Olympic triathlon.

- If you can just implement
that first portion of it,

then the rest of the healthy
changes will come along.

- When you put the mice on the treadmill,

very well like you would
do for a human treadmill,

they run much longer when they are on

time restricted feeding
than the ad lib fed control,

suggesting that there is
some cardiovascular benefits

to time restricted feeding.

- I'm up in the morning,

I feel like I'm alert quicker
than I have been previously.

- I would say that obesity
is probably the single major

largest challenge in America these days

in terms of overall health
and chronic disease.

- The category of people
who are very obese

and they're not necessarily
consuming significantly

more calories.

Oftentimes, these people
have some difficulty

sleeping through the night
and so if they're getting up

later in the evening or
early in the morning,

they'll just go and have a snack.

They'll have something to
eat or something to drink.

That actually increases
their total eating time

to much greater than 15 hours.

In fact, they may be
eating 20 hours a day.

- Flying back on the plane,
I'm reading the study,

I'm starting to understand
what's going on.

There was a third group of mice
that was really interesting.

They had a control
group that was five days

on the time restricted feeding
regime and two days off

and so the idea is that might mirror

our five day working schedule
and our two day off schedule.

- So I wanted to try
whether you could party

on the weekend.

So I had one group of mice that were only

on time restricted feeding
during the weekdays

but then they would have full
access, so 24 hours access,

to foods during the
weekends so we called this

the 5T2A regime for five days
on time restricted feeding

and two days of ad lib
starting on Friday night.

Good news is there's no
difference between being

seven days on time restricted
feeding or only five days

on time restricted
feeding at least in mice.

So if you're mice, you
can party on the weekend.

- All of healthcare
should be embracing this.

We should be using this.

- We're really not
telling people what to eat,

we're telling people when to eat.

I think that this could
give us an excellent way

to initiate a long-term
and effective treatment

for obesity.

- Even if you eat healthy
foods after 7 P.M.,

you actually push your body,
you push your pancreas,

your beta cells, and you
actually become more inclined

to develop pre-Diabetes and Diabetes.

- When we compared the
high fat diet fed animals

and the ones that were on
time restricted feeding,

there was a massive difference.

Basically the ones on
time restricted feeding,

they don't have this Type
2 Diabetes problem anymore.

- From what I've seen,

when someone adopts
time restricted feeding,

that's all they need to do.

That's all they need to
do to completely reverse

this hyperglycemia,

to completely take them out
of this pre-Diabetic state.

I had one woman who was running
pre-Diabetic for two years.

We had her follow time restricted
feeding for a few weeks

and her blood sugar came back normal,

absolutely normal.

We tested her again a few months later

and her blood sugar was again normal

as well as her hemoglobin
A1C and that hemoglobin A1C

is a marker for your blood
sugar over the past three months

and so for her, the burden
of developing Diabetes

was completely lifted.

She didn't have to worry

about that disease entity anymore at all.

- Diabetes is completely off the chart.

Metabolic syndrome is off the chart.

We can't solve that
with drug interventions

but a cultural change where
we learn to eat in that window

where we were at before,

that seems kind of doable.

It's the kind of thing
that a group could start,

you could teach children in school,

we could observe that at
home, we could walk the talk

and that might make such a big difference

on a national scale that it
actually moves the needle.

- If physicians are more
involved in helping people

make this lifestyle change,

I think it will be an
overall cost savings for the,

just medicine in general
because we're going

to be spending less on medication.

We're going to be
spending less on disease.

You know, that super size me guy should do

his whole routine again,

he should do his whole eating
that super size me diet

but under a shorter time frame

and I wonder if he'd have
all those health effects.

- What we're doing here
is really reversing

all of Type 2 Diabetes
and all it's downstream

complications with fasting.

- I've worked with Jason
for 17 years in nephrology

and we were just watching our patients die

from Diabetes essentially,

watching them get more and more obese,

watching their blood sugars
get worse and worse and worse,

their medications go through the roof.

They're on like two or
three pages of medications

and every time we saw a patient,

they were on more and more drugs.

- And I was basically holding their hand

as they had their heart attacks,

as they went on dialysis, as
they developed kidney failures

and strokes.

- That's how we got into
this in the first place.

It was really disheartening
to watch people die

before our eyes.

- So one day, I was talking to a friend

and she was talking about doing a cleanse

and I realized that really
what she's talking about

is a fast and I thought, wow,
that's a really stupid idea

but then I thought for a second, okay,

well this was my initial
reaction and most people

have that same sort of
eye-rolling reaction

to the word fasting and I thought,

okay, but I'm a physician.

What exactly is it that's
so bad about the fasting?

Because she actually had
pretty decent results.

She always says she feels better,

she doesn't feel hungry
and I thought okay, well,

that's very interesting.

So then I started to look at the fasting

and I thought why not?

Like why not have people fast?

I mean, what honestly is
more obvious than fasting?

If you don't eat, your
blood sugars will come down,

and you no longer need
your diabetic medications.

Hey, that's great.

If you don't eat, you will lose weight.

Hey, that's great.

Where's the downside?

- Ann's hemoglobin
A1C was so high that the lab

couldn't detect it.

- Groups like Alcoholics
Anonymous and Weight Watchers,

they're all group based sessions.

- So Ann, can you
tell us about your first fast?

- They're not individually
counseling sessions

because you're losing a very important

support structure there.

- Yes, Dr. Fung said seven or 14 days.

- So that's one of the
lessons we've learned

and we've gone to these
kind of group sessions.

- In the beginning,

it's a pain in the butt to get over that,

the first two day hump
and then after that,

it's really easy.

It seems really easy like I
can't believe I'm not eating

so I stopped at 10 days.

- Since then you haven't touched insulin.

You haven't needed to.

- No, if I went Monday, Wednesday, Friday,

but then you're going
through those hunger pains.

You know, like where
your stomach's growling,

you feel like you could,

ravenous like you could eat a horse, yeah.

- What reading
did you get this morning?

- I got down to 6.4 in the morning.

- Nice!

So I started intermittent
fasting about five years ago.

Within six months I had
reversed my hemoglobin A1C

from 6.4% to 4.6%.

I was diagnosed with fatty
liver disease when I was 12.

In six months, no more
fatty liver infiltration.

Another thing that I was
diagnosed with when I was 14

was polycystic ovarian syndrome

and I would go to the
hospital all of the time

from cysts rupturing and
it just being so painful.

You couldn't bare it.

About six months into fasting,
everything sort of regulated

and when I saw another
specialist later on, my OB,

and we started talking about
it and she said, Megan,

when was the last time
you had a cyst rupture?

And I said I don't know.

I don't remember and I
said I know my periods

are regular now and so she
sent me for an ultrasound

and everything anatomically,

there was no sign of
polycystic ovarian syndrome,

none at all, which is pretty mind blowing,

my progesterone hormones
and all my fertility stuff

and it was fantastic.

It was so much better than
it was when I was a teenager

and my early 20's when
I had measured those.

So fertility for me is not
really gonna be an issue anymore

and I spent most of my life
thinking that I wouldn't

be able to have babies.

They actually saw me improve
so I think that's how we

got some initial success
in how our program

really started to snowball.

People just didn't want
to die from Diabetes.

- But I was walking with a
cane, I wasn't breathing well,

I was, I had put on 130
pounds with the insulin.

- The patients come back to
me with incredible stories.

- I was talking 210
units of insulin a day.

I did the 21 day fast and I
haven't had insulin since.

I've lost close to 100 pounds.

- So everyday I come in,
almost every single day,

I come in and I say, wow, Mr.
So And So or Mrs. So And So,

look, your numbers are such to the point

that you are not classified as diabetic.

That is amazing.

- It saved my life, is what it did.

- You're off the Coversyl too

for your blood pressure.

So you're off of everything.

And around her waist she
has lost 27 centimeters.

- Sometimes people find
that when they fast,

that a lot of these cravings just stop.

- Energy is unbelievable.

As I said, I was walking with a cane.

- Gotta treat everybody as individuals

and that's what we do.

So we see all different regiments.

We use all different regiments.

- I stop eating at about
seven in the evening

and after that it will be
just liquids until dinner

the next day.

- Avocado, slice it up with
two eggs and I will eat that

maybe about 10 o'clock in the morning.

I do not eat again until maybe three,

four o'clock the next day.

That is almost ,
I don't even feel hungry.

- We can tailor it to people's needs.

If you need it for weight loss,

then I can give you something
that's gonna do weight loss

but you only wanna do it
for say overall wellbeing,

mental clarity, well, I'll
give you something different.

- Sometimes seven days.

It depends, okay?

When I feel that it's more comfortable,

then I will take longer one.

- And the key rule and
especially for the elderly is

if you don't feel well, stop, let us know,

let's re-evaluate.

- I have a dinner or lunch,

then you have to keep
36 or 24 hours fasting.

That's what I prefer.

- But the financial benefits
are actually just mind blowing

because think about it, you
have Type 2 Diabetes, obesity,

you've got all kinds of costs.

- I had a new consult a
couple weeks ago and he said,

"I watched my grandparents
follow the guidelines

"and I watched them die.

"I watched my parents
follow the guidelines

"and now I'm watching them
die and they're gonna be dead

"20 years before my
grandparents and look at me now.

"I'm Diabetic, I have fatty liver disease,

"my eyesight's going to hell,
I don't want this to be me.

"Clearly what they're doing
and the method of treatment

"that these physicians are having,

"had my grandparents follow

"and are having my parents
follow don't work."

- You've got your medications,
you've got surgeries,

you've got heart attacks,
very expensive, strokes,

hospitals.

You've got stuff, you need
to pay for nursing care,

you need to pay for nursing homes.

So an incredible amount
of cost all built in

to take care of these sick people.

- I watched my family
die from heart disease.

I watched my grandmother
die from Diabetes.

I watched my mother suffer from Diabetes

following the guidelines to a T.

It doesn't work.

Clearly something is broken
there and I think people more so

than a lot of physicians
understand that science

needs to evolve.

- Well, what if you could
get rid of all that for free?

For free.

Like that's just unbelievable.

Then you'd have money to fight poverty

and you'd have money for
education at the same time

that everybody's healthier
than they've ever been

and the crazy part is that
it doesn't require anything

but the right knowledge which
has the potential to save

like our entire nation's budget.

- Having that diagnosis
of borderline Diabetes

and being told by my
family doctor that 6.4%,

that was scary.

I've had cancer and the
diagnosis of Diabetes

being delivered to me
was so much scarier to me

than the cancer diagnosis
'cause at least with cancer

there's a shot.

With Diabetes, it's a death sentence

and it's a long, painful, slow,
progressive death sentence.

- People sometimes say the
three most influential people

in the history of the world -

Jesus Christ, the prophet
Mohammad, and Buddha -

probably only agreed on one thing

and that was the power of fasting.

- Fasting is an essential
part of our Christian faith.

Christ taught it by his own example.

He also commanded his disciples to fast.

When they were trying
to help other people out

and they weren't so successful, he said,

these problems are only
resolved by fasting and prayer.

- The scriptures teach us
that there are some things

you cannot do if you don't fast.

Miracles, some miracles,
cannot happen without fasting.

- Fasting is such a personal experience

for everyone who fasts and
when it's coupled with prayer,

it changes our life.

- I truly believe that fasting
can change people's heart.

- In the scriptures from ancient
times to the present day,

we read about those who fasted

and in the process of fasting,

they changed.

- I was living in Peru
and I made the decision

to go to my mission.

My father didn't want me to go.

It was for safety reasons.

The country had a lot
of terrorism problems.

So when I went to talk
to my sect president,

he counseled me to fast and to
pray and then to talk to him.

So I did, I fasted and I prayed,

and then I went to talk to my dad.

We cried together and he told me that,

he will let me go to my
mission and that I would

have his support.

It's very meaningful to me

because it was regarding
my mission to serve

and because of it, my life changed.

- It brings me closer to God.

I feel spiritual strength coming to me,

temporal blessings come from it.

Graduating from high
school I wanted to know

which of the two colleges I should go to

that I had been admitted
to and I really wanted it

to be the right place and so as I prayed,

I determined fasting would really help me

and so I fasted.

At the closure of my fast, as I prayed,

it was very clear to me the
choice that I should make.

- We believe that it is
beneficial both spiritually,

physically, and in fact, it
has a humanitarian benefit

when coupled with helping the poor.

- A greater compassion
for those who are in need

and a greater desire to serve
them comes from fasting.

- We learn from the
ancient prophet Isaiah,

that God introduced fasting
to the children of Israel.

He even said, "This is the
fast that I have chosen,"

and then goes on that it's
purpose is to deal bread

to the hungry.

- We fast once a month
for a period of 24 hours,

two consecutive meals.

- The monies that are saved from that fast

are donated to the poor to
help them with all sorts

of humanitarian needs.

- Not enough money to
pay the electric bill,

they don't have the food
necessary for their children,

for clothing, et cetera,

to help them get themselves on their feet

so they can come self-reliant.

- Every person has the opportunity to fast

and even the poorest among
us sometimes will fast

and give what they can in order to help

their brothers and sisters.

- There are seven billion
people in the world.

If we all did this, we
would end world hunger.

- We're at the sight of the Donner party.

There were over 80 individuals.

They ended up in Truckee
Meadows on Halloween of 1846

and it was right around this spot

where they got completely snowed in

and it wasn't until the spring
that rescue parties came.

You can see the monument behind me,

you can see the immigrants
are standing on a platform

that is 22 feet high.

That is how deep the compacted snow was.

It got to the point where
they took all the bones

of the animals and boiled
them and boiled them

and boiled them 'til they
were reduced to fragments

about the size of my pinky fingernail

and these I have seen directly
because we excavated them

in 2004.

There were thousands
of fragments that size

and they were boiling
them to extract collagen

which was the only
source of energy in bone.

Some of the stories
about the Donner Party,

it's heart wrenching.

I mean, these mothers did
some unbelievable things

just to keep their kids alive.

They started utilizing a
little bit of human flesh

and that helped sustain
at least half of them

until the rescue parties
came in the spring.

When it comes to cannibalism,

when the body starts
breaking down, shutting down,

one system at a time,

eventually you reach the
point where you'd do things

that you ordinarily would never consider.

Once the body is starved of nutrients,

once it's utilized muscle,
bone, and fat stores,

then things start shutting down.

The organs of high growth priority,

they are maintained until the end

and you might be able to
imagine what those would be.

The heart continues to
beat, you need that.

The lungs continue to
inhale and exhale air,

you need that and the
hind and the midbrain

continue to function because
they control breathing

and respiration and everything else

but interestingly and this
is what surprises people -

the sequence that things
start shutting down.

When you say you would
never eat human flesh,

that is because you've never
been faced with that dilemma

because starvation basically
impacts the rational part

of the brain and the cerebellum,

the part of the brain
that focuses on survival,

that's still going, the limbic system,

but the part involved
in thinking is not going

so you have to have
been there to understand

what these people went through.

- So I pretty much started
with very turbulent teen years.

I was 14 when I first
moved in with my boyfriend.

I was heavily into the
kind of drug party scene,

like drinking a lot of alcohol,
all that kind of stuff.

I spent a lot of nights up
partying in bars with fake IDs,

drinking, not eating properly,
subsiding on processed food,

eventually developing
septicemia when I was about 16.

It started from a really
bad case of pneumonia,

about 24 hours later I was in the hospital

on intravenous antibiotics for
swollen menages of the brain,

septicemia, multiple organ failures,

and severe chronic disease.

My chances of survival
were actually only 40%.

Something changed and it
was probably a combination

of everything that went on but I remember

leaving the hospital and
I wasn't the same person,

like any happiness for life was gone,

I was very apathetic and depressed.

I seemed to be really
struggling to believe

in a positive future for
myself and self-conscious

and a lot more introverted.

All of this sort of made me focus on,

made me begin focusing on
what I felt I could control

which is what I ate, how I
looked, how other people saw me

and I think I used obsession with my body

and controlling my intake
as a way to be accepted,

feel connected to the
world and the environment,

to be a part of something,
to feel home somewhere.

I remember looking in the
mirror and hating my body

and judging it so harshly.

So I had a lot of different
health conditions,

my main conditions,

I was dealing with
autoimmune thyroid disease,

extreme hypothyroid and a thyroid goiter.

It was actually very difficult
to swallow and eat food.

I had gastroparesis so
really slow stomach emptying

and chronic stomach
inflammation and gastritis,

probably from years of an
eating disorder and antibiotics

and all that stuff as well.

I had really bad irritable bowel syndrome

and chronic inflammatory bowel disease

so I was bloated all the time,
a lot of pain in the bathroom

more than anybody should be,

and my most painful condition by far

and what actually prompted me
to start my YouTube channel,

what I really focused on at the beginning

was one of the top three
most painful conditions

that exist and it was
intrastitial cystitis.

So it's a chronic ulcerative
bladder disease and it's,

the symptoms are a lot of
urgency, burning, pain,

but you have no life really.

You're kind of housebound
and living in your bathroom

in a lot of pain.

This is where I lived for two years.

I was a prisoner in my own bathroom

and I had my identity stripped
by my eating disorder.

I really didn't have a life at all.

- I think the problem is
when you do this fasting,

basically you're simulating
the same kind of situation

that impacted the Donners
and if you take it too far,

it's exactly what I was saying before -

the body starts shutting down.

- Anorexics fast all the time.

I mean, some people may justify fasting.

If they have an eating
disorder they may say,

well, look, fasting is fixing all these

other medical problems,

we know that eating disorders
are medical and biological

if we're talking about
a brain based disorder.

Maybe fasting will fix my eating disorder.

Well, anorexics fast all the time,

it makes their disorder worse.

Bulimics purge food in a number of ways -

self-induced vomiting is the
one that people think about

or misuse of laxatives
which actually does nothing

to get rid of calories, by the way,

but the other thing that
bulimics do to purge is fast.

So both bulimics and anorexics fast

and it makes their disorder worse,

it does not fix it.

- We did see that in the
archeological record.

Bulimics, remember in Rome
they had the vomiteria,

where they would eat and gorge themselves

and then they'd go throw up.

- Yeah, I think that the
Romans and the vomitoriums

that they would have was sort
of a different phenomenon.

That was much more of a social activity

where people would go and
overindulge on purpose

and then they would vomit
in order to continue

to be able to do that.

Patients with bulimia where
they would binge and then purge

often by vomiting,

they find that both the
binging and the purging

to be highly shameful.

They will go to great lengths to hide this

from their friends,

their family,

it's not something they feel
comfortable doing in generally,

in public.

- I remember the first
time I actually purged

and it wasn't with intents.

I literally had eaten
what I thought I shouldn't

after a long time of anorexia,

after many months of
really starving myself

to the point of insanity,

and I remember I was so hungry
I just couldn't, I gave in,

it was like a physiological
survival urge I couldn't ignore

and I was so anxious while
I was eating that I felt

such an upset stomach,

like it felt like I was
doing something so wrong

and afterwards, I mean, I
ate until I couldn't breathe,

like I couldn't control
myself, I was like,

my body needed it and then,

I felt so worried and panicky
that I was going to gain

a ton of weight,

destroy everything I had already done,

I sort of came in the bathroom
really frantic and scared

and I sort of leaned over the toilet bowl

and I was so painfully
full that just the act

of leaning over, I mean,

food practically came up itself

and it was so painful coming up,

it was like fire lava
just shooting out of you

and at the same time I was
flooded with a sense of relief

like it was, it was like I
could get rid of all the shame.

I could get rid of all
the pain in my life,

I could just get back
to the way I was before

and then I would feel
really panicky and shaky

and I would wonder if anybody heard me

and I would be afraid
that I smelt like vomit

and I just felt really
dirty and really disgusting

and I wanted to pretend the
whole thing didn't happen.

So I would rush over to the sink

and just put so much
toothpaste on my toothbrush

and I was so afraid I
had like splatter on me,

I just felt so disgusting I guess,

on such a deep level and
then I would sit in the bath

for a long time and I would
just run the hot water

over my hands and splash my face

and just feel really
ashamed and embarrassed

and hoped that nobody ever knew that I did

because it felt like the
most despicable thing

on planet earth.

- When the recovery battle
began, I was 145 pounds and 6'3"

and now I stand today at 188 pounds.

I just have maybe an inferiority
complex, if you will.

I was bullied as a young kid and going up

through high school and
it always made me angry

and it made me mad and it felt like

if I could work out harder

and if I could watch my diet even tighter,

that's a way to get back at everybody

and it caused me to have
very bad social anxiety.

It just led me to a life of isolation

because I was afraid that I
was going to eat something

that was unhealthy or I was afraid

that I was going to smell
something and want it

and not have it and I
would feel massive anxiety

so I would just talk
myself out of not going

to these places.

So I came home for Thanksgiving one year

and my brother handed me this packet

that said orthorexia on
it and he threw it at me

and he said, "You have this."

- ♪ You're in the upside down all alone ♪

♪ Running from the monster beyond ♪

- Orthorexia is a condition
where you take things

to the extreme.

I specifically remember
tracking my calories

and burning approximately 1800 a day

and consuming only 1400
and if ever a day came

where those numbers were reversed,

I would get so depressed and angry,

it was unbelievable and
I had to super compensate

the next day to make
sure that I was burning

more than I was consuming.

One of the things that
happens when you have

an eating disorder is you
go into this specific type

of depression where you
just don't find pleasure

out of things anymore.

- ♪ It's like a dream passing
through a shrouded fable ♪

♪ I've died before but not again ♪

- The only thing that
I really found pleasure

out of was exercising in huge amounts

and working out really hard
and restricting my calories

and seeing how far I can
actually push it or stretch it.

My emotions were all over the place.

To say life became a struggle
is putting it lightly.

I wouldn't go as far as
saying that I was suicidal

but I definitely had given up on life

and I did not want to live another day.

I literally would pray
that I would go over

to the streets of Manhattan
in the afternoon to work

and I would get hit by a
bus going out of control

or get killed in gang warfare or get shot

or stabbed to death.

I would have to say my lowest point

was when I was contemplating jumping

into the East River in Manhattan.

At that moment I just
started thinking about

my mom who was back home living by herself

and a lot of my close
friends and I was wondering

if they even would care 'cause I didn't

and then my phone rang at
the very moment I stepped

onto that rung and it
was my friend, Jessica,

back home in Pennsylvania and
it's ironic how timing works

in this life but it couldn't
have come at a better time

because she basically talked
me down off of that handrail

and I went and sat down at a bench.

The root problem was I
was so mineral deficient

and I had such a lack of food in my system

that I just wasn't thinking properly.

It never really was about food per se,

it was more about my interaction

and relationships with people,

good relationships were fine.

Ones that were a little
rocky just kind of like

triggered me like that
and I would basically

take everything out on food and fitness.

When I began this
journey back to normalcy,

it was not easy.

It was not an easy road.

I had to accept the fact
that I was gonna gain

some weight back.

I was 145 pounds, I was 6'3"

and I was totally zeroing in
on 140 and that's how I worked.

I would always go in five pound increments

and to me those were huge victories.

- Any food restriction is
problematic for somebody

who has had an eating
disorder, is currently,

actively trying to get
over an eating disorder,

who has a family history
of an eating disorder.

It's likely to send you
back into an eating disorder

if you have a history of it.

- For me, fasting has
actually been a remedy

in my healing process and
I feel that it has helped

my relationship with food.

One of the things that
works so efficiently for me

to keep my eating disorder in
check is eating in windows.

I feel like I don't have to
put as much thought into food.

It kind of basically
takes my mind off of food.

So I become more relaxed
and because of that,

it improves my relationship with food.

- You don't see too many old fat people

and there's a reason
because being overweight

is definitely hard on the system.

I'm a bit overweight and
I'm worried about it.

I might even look into this
fasting myself.

- There's essentially two forms of fasting

that are being advocated currently:

the intermittent fasting

which is essentially intermittent feeding

in which you narrow the feeding windows,

you may restrict calories on
one or two days or more a week.

These can be done safely
often in an outpatient basis

but medically supervised
water only fasting

is a little bit more complicated.

It does require supervision.

It does require a contained
environment in order

to ensure a safe and effective experience.

So when we talk about the
long-term water only fasting,

that's done at facilities like
the True North Health Center

where people are able to
undergo physical exams,

laboratory monitoring,

being in controlled and
contained environment

and in that type of a setting,

fasting can be done,
even prolonged fasting,

can be done safely.

It's also important
that fasting be applied

at patients at the right time.

In other words, there are some
people who have conditions

where they would be better
off with a different approach

than fasting.

Fasting may be too vigorous
or may be inappropriate

because of complications
with medical management

or at least until medications
can be withdrawn, et cetera.

So fasting has a wide
range of applications

but where it does it's
best work is in dealing

with conditions that are caused by excess.

So conditions associated
with dietary excess

include things like obesity,
high blood pressure,

and other cardiovascular related
disease, Type 2 Diabetes,

a host of autoimmune
diseases and even some forms

of cancer like lymphoma seem
to be intimately with our diet

and lifestyle choices

and so it makes sense
that where dietary excess

is a contributing factor to the problem,

fasting may be a helpful means
of rapidly giving the body

a chance to reverse the
consequences of dietary excess.

- In 1994 I had a head injury

and when I regained consciousness,

I had a terrible headache
and prior to the accident,

I had been a practicing dentist.

So because of the nerve
damage to my hands,

I also had to quit practicing dentistry.

I sought medical advice to
get rid of the headache.

I visited with several neurologists.

They were unable to help me.

I also tried some alternative treatments -

acupuncture, cupping -

unfortunately, nothing
was able to help me.

I had a headache everyday
for 16 years, 24/7.

It just never ever went away.

So the neurologist told
me that the reason I had

this never-ending headache
was because the dura mater,

the leatherlike covering of
the brain and the spinal cord

had been torn and had become
inflamed and then when I saw

on the True North website that a number

of the health conditions that they treated

were based on inflammation,

I decided to call and see
if maybe their treatment

of water only fasting
would be helpful to me.

- At the True North Health Center,

we take a rather clinical
approach to fasting.

All patients are
carefully screened by both

taking their history as well
as reviewing their previous

medical treatment.

- He was very honest in
saying that they had never

treated a patient with
this particular problem

but he thought I might have a chance.

When I initially came to True North,

they asked me how long I wanted to fast.

I didn't know I had a choice in that.

I just thought they would tell me.

- Fasting protocols here at
the True North Health Center

can range anywhere from five to 40 days

depending on the patient
and how they respond.

Not everybody or not every
condition has a stereotypical

amount of time that's associated
with its optimum outcome.

- And I told him I was going to fast

until one of three things happened:

either the headache went away
or I could not fast any longer

or all of the doctors
got together and said,

for my own safety, I
needed to quit fasting.

People have wondered at my
commitment to water only fasting

but you have to remember
I had been in serious pain

every minute of the day for 16 years.

I had tried everything that
traditional western medicine

had to offer,

I had tried alternatives.

I also knew there was a
very good chance that I was

going to live to be an old lady.

We have longevity in my
family and other than this

never-ending headache,

I really didn't have any health problems

and I did not want to be 80
years old one day thinking,

what would've happened if I'd
gone to that True North place?

I wanted to try everything
that was possible

to get out of pain.

So I started fasting, the
doctors come in twice a day.

- They're monitored twice
a day by staff doctors

during their fasting experience
where we're taking vitals

and monitoring their conditions.

- To check on you, to make
sure you're doing well,

and everyday it was the same question -

how are you doing?

And everyday for 18 days
it was the same answer,

I didn't have any change.

I still had the headache
but then on day 19 I woke up

and I thought something's wrong.

I didn't know what it was
but it was really scary

because something was wrong and I decided,

I'm not moving out of this
bed until I figure out

what it was and I've got to
say it took me about a minute

to realize what was wrong is

I didn't have a headache anymore.

I had forgotten what it
felt like not to be in pain

and that lasted for about five minutes

and then I went down to tell Dr. Goldhamer

and if possible I think he
might've been more excited

than I was.

He kept saying, "It's
amenable to treatment.

"It's amenable to treatment."

So I went through that whole day wondering

because the pain had only been
gone for about five minutes,

then it came back and I wondered,

I wonder if this will
happen again tomorrow.

The next morning I woke
up and I had no pain

for about 10 minutes
and everyday thereafter

I had a little more time without pain

but almost even better than
that was during the afternoon

and evening my pain was decreasing a lot.

When I first got to True North,

they asked me what my pain
was on the zero to 10 scale

and my answer was,

"It's about a six to an
eight all of the time

"with the exception of those rare moments

"where it kicks up to a 10
when I truly could not move,

"when it would stop me in my tracks,"

and after day 19 and the pain
started to reduce over time,

it finally got to the
point in the afternoon

where I was down to a one or a two.

You just can't imagine
what a blessing that was

and finally on day 41 I woke up,

I had had a whole day without pain,

the doctors wanted me
to quit and I was ready

to quit fasting.

So on that day, I had
a full day without pain

for the first time in 16 years.

Dr. Goldhamer explained that sometimes

it takes more than one
fast to solve a problem

and it turned out that
happened with me as well.

When I started the re-feeding process

which is a very careful re-introduction

of food after fasting.

I started to get some
twinges of pain on and off.

So after two months of re-feeding,

I went back to Dr. Goldhamer and said,

and at the time I couldn't
believe I was asking

to do this again but I said,

"I need to fast again.

"What do you think?"

and he said he thought
that would be a good idea

since I had had good
results on the first fast

and I said, "Great, I'll
start again tomorrow,"

and he said, "No, you
can't start fasting right now,

"you've only been
re-feeding for two months,"

and I said, "Well, what's the problem?"

and he said, "You need to rebuild
your nutritional reserves.

"That's very important,"

and I said, "Well, how
long will that take?"

and he said, "With the length
of fast that you've done,

"probably at least six months,"

and then six months to
the day after I ended

that first fast,

I started fasting again,

again, not knowing how long I would fast,

and I just kept fasting until
all of the pain was gone.

It turned out it was another 40 days

and then I started to
re-feed and at that point,

I didn't have any pain but I had worries

that it would come back
but I just kept following

the doctor's recommendations
about what to eat,

how to eat and it finally
dawned on me one day

that that headache was
gone and that was in 2010

and I haven't had a headache since.

- Well, I found out
about True North through

one of the talks that Dr. Goldhamer

gave to our medical school
and I remember seeing him

and thinking, I definitely,

definitely need to do an internship there.

- We have an opportunity
for doctors to train

in the use of fasting.

We have about 30
clinicians a year that come

from medicine, osteopathy, chiropractic,

and naturopathology.

As part of their rotation,
they're able to do rotations.

We're a ND residency site for
the naturopathic profession

and those doctors come
in and spend a year.

We've recently completed, for example,

a fasting safety study
which shows that fasting

can be a safe and effective
means when it's done properly.

- The conclusion was
that water only fasting

in a medically supervised
facility such as True North Health

using the True North Health protocol,

because we didn't compare
any other protocols,

is relatively safe.

- We're actually very
excited because we see

a wide range of conditions
that tend to respond

to this approach and now
we're in a position finally

with the help of our nonprofit
True North Health Foundation

to begin to document those results

and present them in a way that I think

both clinicians and scientists
will find acceptable.

- What the foundation
is now doing is turning

that into accepted, peer
reviewed published research

and so we're doing the
human subjects research,

bringing people in to look at how fasting

changes biomarkers in the
blood, taste and adaptation,

different studies.

So we'll actually have published material

that we can show people and
people will start seeing fasting

as a modality of healing that
really does amazing things

and has been for millennia for humans.

- For example, in the treatment
of high blood pressure,

we did a study with our colleague,

T. Colin Campbell from Cornell University.

We took 174 consecutive patients

that had high blood pressure
and we put them through

a period of fasting followed
by a whole plant food,

sugar, oil and salt free diet.

Of the 174 consecutive patients
with high blood pressure,

174 people lowered their pressure enough

to eliminate the need for
medication and in that study,

we were able to
demonstrate and effect size

of over 60 points average
drop in stage 3 hypertension.

That's the largest effect
that's ever been shown

in treating high blood
pressure in humans as far

as I'm aware of.

Essentially if you have
high blood pressure

and you undergo fasting and
make diet and lifestyle changes,

you have an exceptionally high likelihood

of being able to normalize
your blood pressure

and if you're willing
to do really dangerous

and radical things like
eat good and exercise,

go to bed on time,

you have an excellent chance of being able

to maintain those results.

- The reason I stayed after
my residency at True North

is because you see that
on an everyday basis here.

You don't have to be
here for years in order

to understand the profound
effect that water fasting has.

- If someone is going to fast

for a day or two,

most people in the United
States are going to have

absolutely no issues with that.

We have plenty of fat
reserves, we can do that.

It is important to make
sure that people are getting

adequate amounts of fluids during that

because dehydration can be very dangerous.

- I think what's happening
right now is that

a lot of people are improvising.

- If someone's going to go
and say, as you mentioned,

a 21 day fast.

That is something that
I think should actually

be monitored that people are doing well.

- So fasting and re-feeding
cycles are extremely powerful,

probably more powerful than
a powerful cocktail of drugs

and so when you eliminate the doctor,

you eliminate the registered dietician,

you eliminate something that
is being clinically tested,

you're now really putting
yourself in a lot of,

in a very dangerous position
and it could be that

it's not very dangerous to you today

because maybe your immune system is fine,

you're not taking any other
drugs but maybe two years

down the road you try it again,

now all of a sudden
you're immuno suppressed

or you have a viral
infection or you're taking

a drug for Diabetes or
you're taking another drug

and now together they
become very problematic

like the infection now could
become a lethal infection

or the insulin.

Now we know some of the people
that have died in clinics

that do fasting have died
from a combination of insulin

and fasting.

So something and even when
I talk to diabetologists,

endocrinologists and they
say, "Your patient could die."

Immediately their answer is like, come on,

it's not possible.

These are doctors, right?

These are experienced doctors.

They don't realize how
combining drug with fasting

can turn to very innocuous
things into something

that can even be lethal.

For example, metformin, very
safe, very widely utilized,

well metformin happens to be
a gluconeogenesis inhibitor

and guess what?

Fasting requires gluconeogenesis.

Now, you take a blocker of gluconeogenesis

and something that requires to survive,

if you don't have gluconeogenesis,

gluconeogenesis refers to
the liver making new glucose,

if you block it on one
side and you require it

on the other side,

you can see you have a
very problematic situation

and now think about the fact
that 100 million Americans

are either diabetic or pre-diabetic

and so all of them are eligible.

So one American in three or
so is eligible for metformin

and pretty soon will be on metformin.

You see how now the
combination of fasting,

or the improvisation with fasting

could be extremely dangerous.

- This was the scariest thing
that I've ever experienced

and I really thought that
I was gonna lose my life

at one point.

I decided to do my 35
day extended water fast

in a fasting clinic outside of Canada.

I was fasting alongside other people,

about 30, 40 people I
think we were in total,

and there,

it turned out actually that
there was a significant issue

with the water and so even with that,

even with poor quality water,

everybody at the center
from what I witnessed

did really well in general
up until about three weeks,

so up until about 21 days and after that

things sort of started to go down south,

not just for me but for
numerous other people as well.

By about day 26, I was really,

instinctively I felt a
powerful urge to end my fast

and I ignored that urge
and my ignoring that urge,

I got really sick.

My roommate almost got raped.

There was a guy with
psychosis who slit his wrists

and had to be rushed to the hospital.

It turned out he had
hyponitremia so it's where

your sodium levels crash so much

that your potassium levels skyrocket

and you actually go
into a mental psychosis.

One girl was so dehydrated
she went to the hospital

and had to be on IV and
the other girl almost died.

I felt helpless.

I felt sort of desperate and
terrified, like terrified.

There was a woman who was there

and her mother came to the center

and was terrified because
her daughter had been so ill

and dehydrated and she
had all the symptoms

of renal failure.

I felt certain that she was
gonna die and I remember

being up all night thinking
this poor girl came here

to save her own life, to heal, and repair,

and she literally almost died.

Her mother took her to
the hospital against

our fasting supervisor's
directive and she was told

that she was in such bad renal failure

and so dangerously
dehydrated that she was,

they weren't sure she was gonna make it.

What I discovered a little bit late

is that it's very important
to research a fasting facility

and make sure that you're
in the care of people

that really can medically supervise you.

Make sure everything's okay.

When things turned for me on day 28,

I was really fearful for my life.

I actually snuck in to
use a computer at a time

when we weren't supposed to.

And I wrote messages to
personal people in my life

like telling them that I wasn't
well and that I was afraid

that I would lose my life
and that I felt more unwell

than I had ever felt.

Because I fasted too long and
didn't get appropriate care,

I think what ended up
happening was I had a lot

of health problems.

I had something called moon face,

extreme inflammation in my face.

In my whole body I had
edema and water retention

from how dehydrated I had been,

how off my electrolytes were,

weight gain, I gained a lot of weight,

about 30 pounds actually
or 28 pounds in two weeks!

As soon as I started eating salt,

even small amounts of cooked food,

it took me two years of eating regularly

and nurturing my body
and trying to tough out

all of these symptoms,

I now, two years later,

am finally completely
feeling like myself again.

I look like myself again.

Fasting needs boundaries.

I almost killed myself through extremism

with my eating disorder and
all of my misuse of food

and then I healed myself
through the right modalities,

finally brought myself back
to health with moderate

and balanced intermittent
fasting, juicing,

eating healthy, developing a
healthy relationship to food,

and then took it a step
too far again

and did extremism and almost died again

with my long water fast
and making myself sick

for an additional two
awful years only to then

find balance again to
finally again go back

to a moderate way of just
intermittent fasting,

getting the benefit without extreme.

Fasting needs boundaries.

- This is the brilliant part
of the fasting mimicking diet

is that at the Longevity
Institute they did research

for many, many years and
discovered how to use food

to fly under the radar
of what we call mTOR,

the detection of food.

So you're actually eating
food, so your body sees food,

but your brain sees fasting.

- The NCI, the National Cancer Institute,

gave us the funds to
do that and we came up

with a fast mimicking diet that
is as effective as fasting,

as water only fasting.

- It's five days but
the five days of eating,

the fasting mimicking diet,

gives you the same benefits as if you did

a complete water fast, nothing
but water for four days.

- And we call it fasting
with food which is

a fast-inating or fascinating concept.

L-Nutra in 2016 launched Prolon,

the very first fast mimicking diet,

and Prolon stands for
promoting health and longevity.

- I first heard about Prolon
when I asked Valter Longo,

Dr. Valter Longo, if I could
interview him for my website

where I write about healing naturally

from inflammatory disorders.

We had this wonderful
conversation about how

his fasting mimicking diets
can turn over up to 40%

of white blood cells in the immune system

which is fantastic news because
for people with the disorder

I had which is the reason
I left CNN and the BBC.

I was working as a journalist in war zones

for about a decade until I got really sick

and I couldn't work anymore
and I devoted myself

to blogging about this,
about these conditions.

Tried the five day fasting
mimicking diet, the Prolon.

My first round of Prolon
was pretty amazing.

It was the first time in my life

that I had had complete
relief from my symptoms

of mast cell activation.

Just absolute and total
remission of symptoms

just so quickly and it lasted
for about a month I'd say

which is, I've understood that
I need to do it once a month.

I was diagnosed with a
very rare, only 10 to 20%

of all cases are this type of cancer,

with a very rare and
very, very aggressive,

it's called triple negative breast cancer.

Coincidence , I had
just arrived in LA, thankfully,

because I was told that I
could join a medical trial

for their new fasting product
which is called Chemo Leaf.

- And they're looking
at it in cancer patients

to improve the efficacy and
safety of chemo therapy.

- Fasting we find that
mice and probably patients

become protected against chemo therapy

and the cancer cells instead don't,

when you just use fasting
cycles, usually at least in my,

fasting cycles are as
powerful as chemotherapy

but it is the combination
of fasting and chemotherapy

that is really effective
and that's where we see

20 to 60% of mice becoming
cancer free in response

to the combination and this is true

for many different types of cancers.

- That was a number that
made me think, okay,

so I am, I'm gonna do both
especially when I was told

that it would protect my
body, my immune system,

and I just thought I
really can't pass that up.

The amazing thing is that
I have this pre-existing

inflamatory condition, the
mast cell activation syndrome,

which means that part of my immune system

is kind of on the fritz
and it's these cells,

the mast cells, are constantly
releasing inflammation

into the body and so, consequently,
we're really susceptible

to allergy type things.

There's nothing more allergy
inducing then chemotherapy

which is why they give you
steroids the day before,

the day of and the day after
and then maybe everyday

after that depending on how you react.

Let me tell you, I went
through one cycle out of eight

without the Chemo Leaf because I fasted

and then there was a scheduling
mix up at the hospital

and I wasn't able to do
my treatment that day.

So the difference between the
time that I went without it

and the time that I went,

the times that I did the Chemo Leaf,

I felt myself going into shock

while I was receiving the chemotherapy,

that time without the Chemo Leaf,

and I firmly believe

that I was okay the other
times because my immune system

was being protected.

All the genetic testing
that I did revealed

was that my tumor had
certain characteristics

that respond to fasting which is amazing!

So I can actually switch off
the genes that were expressing,

the troublesome genes that
were found in my tumor,

that were driving the growth of the tumor,

are turned off by fasting.

The reaction of most
people when you tell them

that you're going through
chemotherapy is absolute horror.

Nowadays, we have
medications that can handle

the side effects, people are on steroids,

they're on two or three different
kinds of antihistamines,

they're on medication to
stop them from throwing up,

they're on medication to help them sleep,

they're on medication,

they're on beta blockers
to block the adrenaline

because they're having so much anxiety,

they're on Xanax, stuff like that.

I didn't take most of what I was given.

I was kickboxing for an hour
at a time, three days a week.

I was doing yoga.

I was standing on my head,
I was doing headstands.

I was almost doing acro-yoga.

I was running up to 45 minutes a day

but the cycle that I
didn't do the fasting,

I struggled to exercise.

I maintained my weight
throughout the whole thing.

People keep telling me
things happen for a reason

and it's kind of what
kept me going through

the whole cancer thing
and thinking,

I need to tell everybody
about the fasting.

I need to tell everybody
because I think it's gonna

save sanity.

I think it's gonna save lives.

Sometimes something is so life
changing that you can't help

but want to shout it out to absolutely

everybody you meet because
what you experienced

was so profound.

- One of the problems with fasting

and fasting mimicking diets

are what you're essentially
selling is nothing.

You're selling the idea that
your body can fix itself

if we remove all of the outside stimuli.

So monetizing that can
be a real challenge.

Getting people to care and
invest money in something

where essentially the benefit
is other people get better

is the ultimate goal but it's
not a very good business model

for the most part.

That's one of the
challenges in getting people

to care about this is
how, what's in it for me?

- It's a little tricky.

What do you do with drugs
and it should be handled

by people that spend a lot of time,

so I encourage anybody that's thinking

about a clinical trial to contact us

and have our contribution in developing

the clinical protocol for the trial.

The fasting mimicking
diet has been published

in the top scientific and medical journals

such as Cell, Cancer Cell,

Cell Metabolism,

JAMA which is the Journal

of the American Medical Association

and Science Translational Medicine.

- Recently published just a few months ago

a major paper in Cell showing
that fasting mimicking diet

some five to six cycles
are able in mice models

to reverse Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.

This is the first time in
history that the reverse

of Diabetes could be done and, again,

it's due to the stem cell rejuvenation.

The stem cells in the body,
when the body is starved,

they actually specialize in
beta cells in the pancreas

and allow the pancreas
to reproduce insulin

and decrease glucose in the blood.

- Beta cells in the
pancreas are rejuvenated,

regenerated.

- There's nothing in medicine today

that can induce these effects.

- We think it's a very old program

that is not that different
from what happens

when you cut yourself.

So you cut yourself and within a few weeks

everything goes back to
almost a perfect state.

So the body really knows
how to repair itself

is that probably fasting
has always been used

as a way to get rid of bad
cells, turn on stem cells,

regenerate for tens of thousands of years

and now in the last 100 years or so,

we eat so much all the
time and most patients

that we talk to have never
gone more than a day or so

without food.

- So it turns out that
once you get to about

the third day of not having any food,

then your body has to go into action.

- After two days either on a complete fast

or a fasting mimicking diet,

now the body starts really entering

a starvation response mode.

- The body then starts
shedding elderly cells

and cells with DNA damage

because these are consuming calories,

they're not doing their job right though

and then the body starts
pushing the stem cell,

the young cost effective
from cells

pushes them to actually replace those

and now you have new cells
in the body replicating

and taking action.

This is what we call
part of the rejuvenation

in the body due to the consecutive

or longer period of fasting,

what we call today prolonged
or periodic fasting.

- In terms of stem cells, you
will not stimulate stem cells.

You won't get brain derived
neurotrophic factor increase

unless you fast for at
least three to four days.

- You need to realize that
stem cells are the repairmen

of the body.

They're all over your body
and they're constantly working

to repair little bits of
damage that happen everyday

but think what would
happen if those stem cells

stopped doing their job

and that's what happens
in a lot of patients

who really aren't living
a healthy lifestyle,

is those cells can get hurt
and they're not doing their job

so injuries stack up.

In 2004, I was reading an
animal study on a rabbit

that showed that you could
take Mesenchymal stem cells

and regrow a disc.

Obviously that caught my
attention 'cause we had

a lot of back pain
patients with bad discs.

So I sought out some
researchers that were using

Mesenchymal stem cells to treat injuries

and they were doing it in horses

and so we ported that over to humans.

So, today, we've published
50% of all of the patients

in the world literature
who have been treated

with stem cells and who
have orthopedic problems.

What we can say at this
point is that the environment

that your stem cells are in
can have a dramatic impact

on their ability to grow, proliferate,

and do what they're supposed to.

That environment can be affected by diet,

it can be affected by exercise,

it can be affected by medications.

- Everything in the body
has multiple functions,

multiple sites of action.

So when you give a drug
that you think is working

in one site,

it's working and doing
things all over the body

in ways that we may not even comprehend.

That's why when you
look at pharmaceuticals,

the list of side effects are
huge and often including death.

If you've watched television
and you see the commercials

from any of the pharmaceuticals,

they actually show people
having a wonderful time

and then they say, and by the
way, this drug may kill you.

That is one thing that does
not happen when you eat

the right foods,

when you exercise, when you
incorporate periodic fasting.

- So what we found was that
high blood pressure medications,

cholesterol medications,

these are common things taken by many,

many different Americans but
they hurt their stem cells'

ability to grow and culture.

So that's not a good thing.

If you think about the
fact that these medications

are impacting your body's own stem cells

and their ability to maintain
and repair that body,

that's a big problem.

So as an example,

we've treated lots of patients
through the years with

tendinopathy due to taking a
specific type of antibiotic.

- I literally became debilitated.

I had shoulder pain, neck pain, leg pain.

I could barely walk.

I even had a hard time breathing.

Two of my discs had completely
herniated into my spine.

I really felt I was dying.

- Now this is a known problem.

They'll take this antibiotic
'cause they have a common cold

and the next thing they know,

they're in chronic pain
all over their body.

Why?

Because that particular antibiotic reduces

the stem cells ability in their
body to repair their tendons

and we all get tendon
wear and tear everyday

that needs to be repaired.

So one of the things we started realizing

is that when we were
going to use the patient's

own cells to try to repair something,

we had to have patients
clean up their lifestyle

including their diet.

We make sure that they're
fasting when they come in

because we know that fasting can increase

the body's ability to help repair itself.

- For the next several
weeks after each time I do

a fasting mimicking diet,

I end up with significantly reduced pain

in all of my joints.

- Polycystic ovary syndrome.

That's one of my niches.

I deal a lot with hormones.

If you take an unhealthy
woman and you trick her body

into getting pregnant,

often it will be rejected
and if it's successful,

it's not usually very successful
because she often will have

very severe complications
later on towards the end

of pregnancy like high
blood pressure and toxemia,

pre-term labor, a lot of Diabetes,

many, many complications in these women

when they do not get them
healthy but trick them

into getting pregnant.

So then she came to me and she just said,

"I've tried the conventional route.

"I've spent thousands of
dollars trying to get pregnant

"and I've heard that there's
this integrative approach.

"So what can you do to help me?"

She did everything I asked.

So she had a large breakfast,
she had a medium lunch,

she had a tiny dinner.

She didn't eat after 7 P.M.

She began exercising.

She ate no processed foods.

She did everything right.

Then after a month, I put her on Prolon.

After three cycles, she got pregnant.

That was almost a year ago

and she recently delivered her baby.

She has a beautiful, healthy baby.

She's in her late 30's now.

She's been trying for all these years.

- Depending on the therapeutic use,

you have to really
understand this and use it

to your advantage.

So, for example, when we do
it for metabolic syndrome,

Diabetes, and cancer,

we do between four and five days fasting

together with various therapies.

That's sufficient.

When we look at auto immunities
instead we go to seven days.

Why do we do that?

Because we now wanna do more
destruction of damaged cells.

The auto immune cells in this case.

So if you do a shorter fast,

you're not really gonna benefit that much

because you don't have
enough time to destroy

the damaged cells and also
you have less rebuilding

using the stem cell.

So this is why it's so
important to understand

the mechanism behind it
and for each purpose,

really using a different
fasting base intervention.

- I was working on a
documentary for the BBC,

What if We Could Stay Young Forever?

We were looking at diet
and exercise and lifestyle.

I met Dr. Valter Longo
to talk about his work

and it was at the time

he was preparing for his clinical trial

and suggested that I might like to be

one of the volunteers in that trial.

So the trial involved what is known

as a fasting mimicking diet
over five consecutive days

and that was repeated three times.

- One of the things that
our large clinical trials

have shown is that at the very least,

we know that fasting
mimicking diets are safe

for the average person.

- Probably the number one
thing that I noticed is

is weight control.

- The past year I have
prescribed the Prolon diet

to about 120 or 130 patients.

A lot of them come to me
saying I tried all the diets

and I can't lose weight.

Well, I tell them, well
let me prove them wrong.

Let's try this diet and you will see

that you will lose weight.

All of them have lost weight.

- The other things we saw is that

you do have to train the body.

It's a little bit like working out.

If you just do this once for five days,

you'll get a lot of the benefits:

quite a bit of weight loss,

a number of other metabolic
markers may be affected as well

but you will eventually return to normal

if you make no other lifestyle changes

over the period of the next
several weeks to months.

If you do this consecutively
for three months in a row

of five days at the
beginning of each month,

we see that you maintain a
much more significant amount

of benefits over a much
longer period of time.

- I find Prolon to be a
breakthrough in the care

that I give to diabetics.

- Ideally, once a quarter is about the,

what appears to be the kind
of set point to keep that

sort of cellular muscle tone, as you will,

to keep the body in the,
in shape for nutrition.

Dr. Longo actually did
a study where he did

two groups of mice,

one group ate,

they both ate the same total
calories during the study,

one group had fasting mimicking mixed in

and then overate and the other
group ate the same amount

the whole time and the group that overate

with fasting mimicking
diet was still skinny

and the other group of mice was obese.

So it is really about training the cells

how to use nutrition.

You can take in even potentially
less good for you foods

if your body is in shape and
it'll do the right things

with them.

- They'll say they've lost
up to eight pounds a week,

they have more energy, they feel better.

- I've been trying to
convince this patient

for months and months,

maybe a year to try to give up his soda.

It just took five days with
Prolon for him to stop.

- This is the brilliance of
the fasting mimicking diet

that we get to harness
our inner powers to heal

while simultaneously enjoying food.

So what could be better?

- What we've been teaching
here since 1956 is that people

ought not to be eating solid
food until approximately

10 o'clock or so in the morning.

We wind down in the evening.

Ideally, you don't eat
after five but the latest

would be six or seven o'clock at night,

providing you go to bed
then three hours later.

Now this is something we've
observed with hundreds

and hundreds of thousands
of people for over 60 years.

This is no longer a theory or a philosophy

and the scientific
community now has validated

what we've been observing
in a clinical setting.

So all of our guests here
are encouraged to do at least

a one day a week fast.

- I had the privilege of
directing one of the most

renowned fasting clinics
in Europe in Sweden.

So the government realized
they needed to do research

and they spent about $2.5 billion to find,

it was like 90% success rate
and we actually got certified

and by doing that to us,
any physician that thought,

well, you have an inflammatory problem,

because fasting was definitely
something that worked

as an anti-inflammatory with arthritis,

rheumatoid arthritis and
gout and asthma, emphysema,

psoriasis, eczema, you name it,

everything just about
under the sun, Diabetes,

cardiovascular, obesity, Crohn's, colitis,

then actually 80% of their fee

would be paid by the government.

So this was back in the
mid-70's and ran until

the beginning of 80's.

It disappeared when a new
group came into the government.

The problem is it wasn't
replaced by something

that was even better,

it didn't have 90% success rate.

I think those people
were influenced by money,

as simple as that.

- I was driving and all
the cars were disappearing

into like an abyss, into a mirror,

and the white lanes were
going up and down and my head

was pounding so bad
that I felt like someone

was taking a crowbar and
pulling apart my head.

I pulled over on the side of the turnpike.

I had a four pound brain tumor
that were surgically removed

at the National Institutes of Health.

It was the biggest ordeal
that I ever went through.

They drilled six holes into
my head and 47 staple scar.

When I was diagnosed with
two more brain cancers,

I just, I fell apart.

I could not handle having surgery.

I couldn't handle chemo.

- Here at Hippocrates, ever since 1956,

we've been dealing with
tens of thousands of people

who have cancer.

- In October of 2012, I
found a lump in my breast.

- It was cancer.

This cancer had grabbed ahold
of everything behind my knee

and bundled it so they
couldn't do anything

but cut my leg off above the knee.

- And the last three oncologists
that we consulted with,

second and third opinions,
all said the same thing

that she has to have the leg
removed or she's gonna die,

no mistake about that.

- Of course, fasting has
always been a big part,

a significant part of the
caloric intake and dietary part

of our program but those
who condone water fasting,

in the case of people
who are in the conquest

of all forms of cancer,

we don't think it's really prudent.

You need caloric intake.

You need the protein
that literally comes from

the juices we suggest here
which are non-sugary juices

made out of green
vegetables, green leaves,

and most important, sprouts
that have very high amounts

of amino acids and these
amino acids are something

that the body requires
to maintain the strength

and the viability of the cells.

Now we're made of cells.

You have a hundred trillion
cells that make up your body

and this tends to breakdown,

the emaciation you see from cancer

basically is a protein degradation.

- I ended up doing it for three
months and when I went back

to the oncologist, I did
the MRI with contrast,

we got the results - no cancer.

- I maintained this lifestyle
very strictly for a full year

and at the same time continued
to see that lump diminish

until now it's gone.

- I'm 91.

This little girl is 90.

- For 21 years, I have been cancer free!

We are great dancers.

We now teach people at
Golden Lakes to dance.

- How 'bout a kiss?

Yay!

- I get these horrible
skin rashes on my face

and my body.

Coming to a place like
Hippocrates would make my life

and just the fasting
experience a lot easier.

- For me, just doing water
fasting wasn't going to work.

Even more than a day was very difficult,

just for me personally.

I can only speak from personal experience

but if I were to do the juice fasting,

it was easier because I was still able

to have that intake of food.

- And today is actually the
fourth day that I'm coming out,

I'm easing myself gently out of the fast.

My skin just smoothing out.

I didn't have the red marks
I usually have on my arms

and on my face.

- I didn't always feel
this way about fasting.

In fact, I was pretty opposed to it.

- Dr. Mercola and I have
been together eight years,

my significant other, so
we did the program in 2012

here at Hippocrates and
I think it inspired him.

- I've come to the conclusion
that there is no single

more powerful metabolic
intervention that can be used

than fasting.

In fact, when people,
friends or relatives,

come to me now with
heart attack or cancer,

in almost every case
that is the first step

I'll have them do because
it's gonna jumpstart

their ability to build fat for fuel

and increase all the metabolic benefits

that you get from doing that.

- I lost 40 pounds in
90 days on a juice fast

and never gained it back.

- So the problems we have
today that 2/3 of Americans

are obese, 5% morbidly obese,
diabetes, cancer, arthritis,

all of this should never have happened.

We had the solution in the 70's.

We really need to realize
there's nothing new

under the sun.

Get back on the track
with your own lifestyle.

Whatever religion, whatever
country you come from,

I think you will agree with this.

We have to take our
responsibility in our own hands

and have the life for our
family, for our children,

our grandchildren, that they deserve.

They deserve an amazing
life and I think most of us

are looking right now at
the future and saying,

how are they gonna deal with this?

How are they gonna deal with the diseases?

How are they gonna deal with
food that's not nutritious?

With all the chemicals,

the pollution in our water and our air,

how are they gonna deal with it?

Well, it's time we deal with it.