Is fasting therapy good for your health?

In today's society, the upsurge of weight loss is surging; Coupled with the popularity of religious beliefs and the upsurge of modern people's health care, fasting therapy or extremely low-calorie diet is becoming more and more popular. Some people even claim that fasting therapy can cure all diseases and eliminate all harmful toxins in the body. It is often unexpected not to know the health hazards of fasting therapy or extremely low-calorie diet. In fact, many people have sudden death and severe shock due to fasting or extremely low-calorie diet, which leads to hyperuremia and acute renal failure (uremia). Therefore, the general public had better not try it easily. The so-called extremely low-calorie diet means eating only less than 1000 calories a day.

In fact, hunger strike claims to eliminate toxins in the body, but after excessive burning consumes adipose tissue, it is more likely to release fat-soluble toxins accumulated in fat for a lifetime, such as pesticides, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls. And make the body poisoned again. In addition, bile can not be secreted and excreted during hunger strike, which is more likely to aggravate the damage of toxins.

After fasting or extremely low-calorie diet, in order to supplement insufficient calories, the body will not only burn fat into ketone bodies, but also some structural proteins in the body will be converted into glucose, and some will burn directly into calories and disappear. Blood sugar will rise, tolerance will disappear, and it will exceed normal. The ketone body in the blood rises, which is prone to acidemia. Gaseous substances discharged through urine will also be reduced by half.

Generally speaking, weight loss is tolerable. But losing weight quickly to less than half the standard weight is fatal. According to animal experiments, not eating for seven days will shrink the liver by 40%, the gastrointestinal tract by 30%, the kidney by 20% and the heart by 20%.

After fasting for seven days, various organs and internal organs will have the following functional degradation:

1. Heart

The cardiac output will be reduced by 18%, cardiac functional indexes will be reduced by 38%, ventricular contractility will be weakened, myocardial atrophy and interstitial edema will occur.

2. Lung

Pulmonary respiratory function deteriorated by 8-30%, respiratory muscle weakness.

3. Gastrointestinal tract

Villi atrophy or even disappear. Lymphocytes infiltrated into the intestinal wall.

4. Liver

Liver sugar, protein and fat contained in liver cells decreased or even disappeared. Serum albumin drops, and fatty liver will appear in severe cases.

5. Kidney

Will gradually lose the ability to concentrate urine.

6. Endocrine system

Thyroxine secretion will decrease, leading to hypothyroidism. In addition, sex hormones will also reduce secretion, resulting in sexual dysfunction.

7. Immune system

The most serious impact is the decline of immune function, which is easy to be infected and die. Lymphocyte decrease, leukocyte function decrease, antibody production decrease, and even neutrophil decrease.

Causes of sudden death caused by fasting therapy or extremely low calorie diet

The main cause of sudden death is often sudden arrhythmia, which leads to cardiac paralysis and death. The possible reasons for arrhythmia are that adrenaline can't be metabolized due to insufficient dietary calories and hunger, and elements such as copper, potassium and magnesium are unbalanced. In addition, sympathetic nerve is hyperactive, myocardial cells are atrophied and liver sugar is lacking, so once stress occurs, it is easy to lead to arrhythmia.

It is worth noting that about 20% to 40% of those who died suddenly had mental disorders before the sudden death, such as auditory hallucinations and hallucinations. Therefore, anyone who takes fasting therapy or extremely low-calorie diet should immediately stop fasting therapy or extremely low-calorie diet once his mental state is abnormal.