Intermittent fasting is a popular – and dietitian approved – dieting concept for weight loss.
But as it turns out, regularly having a longer period without food could actually be really good for your brain.
Dr Rahul Jandial, world-renowned brain surgeon and neuroscientist, tells 9Honey that there are actually a host of psychological benefits to skipping breakfast every now and then.
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“The brain is a hybrid vehicle and the concept of intermittent fasting has been proven to have a psychologically clarifying effect,” the author of Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon tells us.
Intermittent fasting is where people only eat during a restricted window during the day, usually opting to either skip breakfast or dinner so that they have a 16-plus hour window (mostly overnight) where they aren’t consuming food.
“You have to have a 16-hour gap between consumption of things with nutrition, so you can have black coffee, with no sugar, you can have water, but nothing else,” Dr Jandial explains.
“And what the body naturally does is when glucose runs out after 16 hours, the liver says ‘the body’s out of glucose’, then the brain says ‘I’m not happy’, and then the liver will release ketones.”
Simply put, ketones (or ketone bodies) are an alternative fuel that is made in your liver when there is not enough glucose (sugar) for energy.
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“If you look at the cognitive neuroscience literature, people do better with emotion, focus, alertness, when they’re running on a hybrid vehicle – sometimes electric sometimes gas, sometimes ketones, sometimes glucose,” Dr Jandial adds.
But it won’t happen overnight.
“That’s the raw science of why intermittent fasting works – that sort of switching back and forth – but it won’t do it in one day, more over months.”
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When it comes to other fad diets, especially those that recommend cutting out complete food groups like carbs and sugar, Dr Jandial warns these won’t be good for your brain health.
“That’s the wrong kind of fasting,” he says.
“Cutting out subgroups; cutting out fat, cutting out carbs, cutting out’ blue things’ like blueberries, cutting chocolate, no, no.”
In the end it all comes down to the cadence of eating, not the actual ingredient itself.
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