can it be used for the prevention of the disease? – breaking latest news

I hear a lot about intermittent fasting: could this diet help me prevent the onset of diabetes, given that I have an important family member (both parents and maternal grandparents)? I am also overweight (72 kg for 1.65 cm tall).

He answers Stefano Pariniinternist, AUSL Ferrara, Association of Diabetologists (GO TO THE DIABETES FORUM)

Improving your weight with calorie restriction — and regular physical activity — could certainly be of benefit to you: strongly and clearly recommended for the prevention of type 2 diabetes in those at risk a 7% weight loss, combined with regular physical activity for 20-30 minutes a day or 150 minutes a week, as well as reducing the total intake of fat and increasing that of vegetable fibres. At the moment there is no equally strong evidence to recommend changing our food pattern three main meals with two snackseven if there are numerous researches on intermittent fasting: the hypothesis that more or less long periods of fasting, alternating with periods of more or less free eating, activate metabolic pathways connected to catabolism (the process of splitting complex molecules into simpler molecules ), autophagy (cell self-cleaning process) and molecular mechanisms a protect us from developing chronic diseases, such as diabetes.

The term intermittent fasting refers to various regimens:
periodic fasting: fasting up to 24 hours, once or twice a week, with free feeding on the remaining days;
limited time feeding: you eat within 8 hours every day and fast in the remaining 16;
fasting every other day: one day with a free diet is followed by one with a maximum intake of 25% of the caloric requirement;
5:2 diet: restriction of caloric intake on two non-consecutive days per week (reducing 500 kcal for women and 600 kcal for men), with unrestricted eating on the remaining days.

To understand it ratiowe must bear in mind that:
a) at the basis of aging and the development of pathologies such as diabetes vi
low-grade chronic inflammation induced by age, physical inactivity, genetic predisposition, lifestyle, pollutants (cigarette smoke, alcohol) and — last but not least — overfeeding. Everything induces metabolic stress with an increase in oxidative stress, which in turn causes important alterations in the organism, which however improve with caloric restriction, also obtained through intermittent fasting;
b) there is a group of genes that code for proteins called sirtuins, of which there are seven types. These proteins perform various control actions of metabolic pathways involved in the development of tumors, neurodegenerative diseases, aging, diabetes. In particular low expression levels of Sirt1 (one of the seven proteins) appear to be implicated in the development of type 2 diabeteswhile its activation stimulated by caloric restriction;
c) the body responds to intermittent fasting minimizing cellular synthesis, growth and reproductionfavoring maintenance and repair systems, improving resistance to stressrecycling the damaged molecules and promoting the survival of the cells which together improve the state of health and resistance to disease;
d) in humans insulin sensitivity varies according to the time of day, decreasing at night. Avoiding eating at night can synchronize food intake with effective postprandial hormone release, resulting in better blood sugar control.

From a metabolic point of view, intermittent fasting appears to be promising in improving insulin sensitivity, at least in the short term; the data we have today show how the calorie restriction (also obtained with intermittent fasting), rather than the timing of meal intake, to have an impact on oxidative stress and inflammation. In any case, these data force us to review the concepts in vogue in recent decades which discouraged fasting as a dietary approach, authorizing new behavioral models for weight loss, perhaps more suited to the rhythms of today’s life. However, it must be clear that only by reducing the total calories introduced — with or without intermittent fasting — can we achieve weight loss and improve the metabolic picture.