Fasting – Facts you must know

Feeding and fasting are interrelated. They can’t be separated from each other. Fasting period gives the body, time to repair. It enables organisms to enter alternative metabolic phases, which rely less on glucose and more on ketone body-like carbon sources. Protection of fasting period is very much essential. The food stored in the body during feeding is utilized during the fasting period for various activities by the body. 

Fasting is perceived differently as per own convenience by people, counting its advantages to each other in superlatives. Different people practice it for different purposes, from reducing weight to maintain a zero figure as a mark of beauty. Some people observe few hours fasting, whereas some observe for some days. Some observe as a religious practice whereas some observe for the welfare of their loved ones.  Some celebrate fasting by eating only fruits, dry fruits, sago, Vari rice and offbeat cereals on their fasting day. Some eat before sun set, whereas some eat after the sun set or moon rise. A wide variety of fasting practices are observed all over the world for variety of purposes. 

Fasting as therapy in Ayurvedic perspective: 

Fasting is an important therapeutic measure. However, the therapeutic utility of fasting therapy is not limited to weight loss. The therapy is basically used to treat all illnesses caused by overeating or rather mismanaged food intake, known as Santarpana in terms of Ayurveda. Almost all diseases are produced as a result of mismanaged eating habits or undernutrition. Mismanaged eating habits reduce disease tolerance making the body vulnerable to variety of illnesses including infectious diseases and metabolic disorders like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, PCOD etc. In all these illnesses fasting therapy can be used effectively. However, it can’t be used randomly. 

Indications of fasting: Fasting therapy is very popular as a treatment for obesity. However, it can’t not be practiced universally by all patients of obesity. It is effective only in moderately obese patients and hence should not be practiced by too much obese patients. Fasting should also not be practiced in obesity associated with diabetes, chronic cough, enlarged abdomen, urinary diseases, skin diseases, fistula and other illnesses of serious nature.

Effects of fasting for long hours: Fasting if used inappropriately and for prolonged periods, may prove very harmful to the body. Some of the harmful effects are as follows: Emaciation, depletion of body mass, intensive thirst, dehydration, giddiness, tastelessness, digestive impairment, loss of sleep, diminishing of vision, hearing and voice, depletion of virility, loss of vital energy, loss of hunger. Pain in suprapubic area i.e. urinary bladder, pain in chest, headache, pain in calves, thighs, nape of the neck, back ache and fever. Fasting for long hours also leads to prattling, delirious speech, malaise, nauseating and vomiting sensation, splitting pain in knuckles of hand and feet, obstruction in passage of flatus, constipation and failure to pass urine leading to kidney failure.

Studies on religious fast such as Ramadan fast, have proved to give rise to diseases like, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, hyperuricemeia, hyperglycemia, heart, liver and kidney disease. In females such fasts are observed to produce menstrual disorders. It also disturbs thyroid health.

Fasting and energy needs: The energy needs of the body are regularly fulfilled by the glucose stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. Glycogen reserves of the body can last for 24 hours during fasting. After 3 days of starvation, about a third of the energy needs of the body are met by ketone bodies. The fuel reserves of the body are known to last from 1 to 3 months depending upon individual health. In the later stage of starvation, the only source of fuel that remains is proteins. In terminal stages, protein degradation accelerates, and death inevitably results from a loss of heart, liver, or kidney function.

The above discussion clearly indicates that fasting in any form should not be practiced randomly. In certain conditions it may prove beneficial. But it should be practiced only under the supervision of an expert.                                                      

                                                                       -Prof. Dr. Shriram Savrikar                                                                                                                          M.D. (Ayu), Ph.D.