Why Longevity Doctor Peter Attia Has Changed His Mind About Fasting
Metadata
- Author: Sydney Bueckert, NASM CPT, CES, FNS, GPT
- Full Title: Why Longevity Doctor Peter Attia Has Changed His Mind About Fasting
- Category:articles
- Published Date: 2023-05-23
- Summary: Longevity doctor Peter Attia, who was once a strong advocate for fasting, has changed his mind about the practice. In the past, Attia himself would engage in extended water-only fasts, believing that fasting could increase stress resistance, promote longevity, and reduce the risk of chronic diseases. However, in a recent interview, Attia revealed that he no longer supports fasting. The specific reasons for his change in stance were not mentioned in the article.
- URL: https://honehealth.com/edge/nutrition/peter-attia-fasting/
Highlights
- studies show fasting can increase stress resistance and longevity, and decrease your risk of chronic disease—including cancer and obesity (1). (View Highlight)
- In his fasting era, Attia was known to do a seven-day water-only fast once a quarter, and a three-day water-only fast once a month. (View Highlight)
- in a recent interview with celebrity trainer and nutrition influencer Thomas DeLauer, Attia shared that he’s changed his stance on fasting. (View Highlight)
- “While there are clearly some benefits of [fasting], it’s very difficult to measure what’s happening cellularly,” says Attia. Those benefits also come with a huge downside, decreasing muscle mass, which is why Attia hasn’t done a multi-day fast since 2020. “Today, I just don’t feel that that trade-off is worthwhile, at least at the extreme level that I was doing.” (View Highlight)
- One review concluded that a major downside of fasting is the accompanying loss of muscle (2). If there is a way to make up for this loss, Attia hasn’t found it. “As much as you might exercise during those periods of fasting, which I tried to, you’re just not going to be able to maintain lean mass,” he said. (View Highlight)
- Even if you don’t fast, starting at age 30, you can lose as much as three to eight percent of your muscle mass per decade (3). Muscle loss slows down your metabolism, and decreases your strength and functional ability to complete daily tasks with ease. (View Highlight)
- “One not uncommon scenario that we see with [fasting] is that a person loses weight on the scale, but their body composition alters for worse: they lose lean mass (muscle) while their body fat stays the same or even increases,” Attia wrote in his book Outlive. (View Highlight)
- Attia believes fasting is a “tool” that should only be used for the ideal candidate. That person is someone who either has a good deal of muscle to spare or someone who has over 35 percent body fat and can handle losing a little muscle because they have so much fat to lose. (View Highlight)
- Fasting for longer periods comes at a price: “You are virtually guaranteed to miss your protein intake with this approach,” Attia wrote in Outlive. Alternatively, “sixteen hours without food simply isn’t long enough to activate autophagy, inhibit chronic mTOR elevation (mTOR is a gene that regulates protein production and helps you build muscle, but too much is linked to diseases like diabetes and cancer (4, 5), or engage any other longer-term benefits of fasting we would want to obtain,” Attia said. (View Highlight)