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Looking for Citations about Prolonged Fasting

Hi everyone. This community has been super helpful for me to get back into fasting.

I used to water fast two days a week to manage my weight and shifted to eating lower calories and a balanced diet over time. But after I had covid the brain fog was insane. My performance at work started to plummet etc.

I am fasting 1 - 2 days a week and it is helping a ton. But after some eating days I wake up with no energy and a brain that doesn’t cooperate etc. I also have some lingering sports injuries I am trying to heal via PT stretching etc.

I am looking for citations and studies so I can make an informed choice on whether a 5 day water fast may improve my long covid and my injuries. Unfortunately the internet is full to the brim with pseudo science garbage about how the body, “shifts its attention to healing,” when you fast or other magical thinking.

Could folks post studies scientific articles etc… that may shine some light on if this would help? When I fasted more regularly I did one five day fast - and it was HARD. I think it would help me - but it will be way easier to make it through a 5 day water fast if I know it is going to help. Thank you all for your help and for being such a supportive community!

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Answer

I am as interested in this subject too. AFAIK there are no well-designed scientific studies that examine the impact of long term fasting on covid treatment.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7351063/

This study looks at IF as a preventative measure to avoid getting covid. Yet it concludes:

>However, there is currently no experimental evidence that described the impacts of fasting against SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Note that I have not done a deep dive into all the references in that article. But if you care to do so you might find something that points you in the direction you need.

Answer

Even a decent documentary would be interesting. Searching this theme on Google or Youtube turns up that an old BBC version seemed to exist, that is only available on Youtube as short video citations. Technical papers covering narrow themes of related subjects, of limited study range effects on mice, can be really interesting, but not so practical for actionable input.

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