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The physical & mental benefits of the Islamic fasting

Updated: Nov 16


First: The Physical benefits
 Increased sensitivity to insulin

Insulin sensitivity is a term used to describe how effectively the body lowers blood sugar levels, by secreting the hormone insulin.

A person with a higher insulin sensitivity will need less insulin to handle the glucose in their blood than someone with a lower sensitivity.

Decreased insulin sensitivity can lead to a host of ill effects such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, heart disease, and obesity. It has been scientifically proven that fasting significantly increases insulin sensitivity.

In short

 fasting can help enhance insulin sensitivity, which in turn can help us have healthy blood pressure, cholesterol levels, heart disease, a healthier weight, and a lower risk of diabetes.

The autophagy

Professor Yoshinori Ohsumi, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology last year, devoted himself to studying a process called autophagy. In broad terms, it's like stripping an old car and reusing parts that might still be useful elsewhere

It has been found that autophagy plays a critical role in helping the body to

  Fighting the onset of a wide range of diseases and ailments, including neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's. It has been found that fasting is an effective way to induce the autophagy process in the body.

For those of us who care more about beauty than the health of their brains

Autophagy has also been found to decrease how quickly individuals age.

Briefly

Fasting can stimulate autophagy, which in turn can prevent a host of neurodegenerative disorders, in addition to helping us look younger.

Promote gut health

It was found that a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut is critical to a healthy digestive system. Researchers from the laboratory of Professor John Thomas reported that fasting fruit flies experienced gene activity that produced an anti-inflammatory response that protected their digestive systems and the bacteria within them. While this study was conducted on fruit flies, the Flies chosen because they have the same metabolism-related genes as humans. A healthy digestive system can greatly boost our immune system. Accordingly, the researchers found that the flies that fasted lived twice as long as the flies that did not fast.

Briefly

  Fasting can promote gut health, which in turn can improve our immune system and digestive processes, allowing us to live longer.

Killing cancer cells

It has been proven that fasting kills cancer cells. Researchers from UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, report that intermittent fasting inhibits the development and progression of the most common type of childhood leukemia.

Another study reported

  Conducted this time at the University of Southern California, fasting, when combined with chemotherapy, strips away the protection that protects breast cancer and melanoma cells, allowing the body's immune system to treat the cancer more effectively.

Other published research has shown that

The combination of fasting and chemotherapy makes the treatment more effective

Briefly

Fasting can help the body fight cancer cells, as well as slow their progression and development.

Second: The physiological health benefits:
The Increased willpower

Professor Roy Baumeister of Florida State University has spent a great deal of time researching self-esteem and self-control/willpower.

Perhaps surprisingly, he found that willpower is more important to happiness and success than self-esteem.

His strength model of self-control likens willpower to a muscle that can get stronger with exercise. Using this model, Baumeister and his colleagues found that individuals who devote some time to improving their "control muscles" see a full range of benefits, some expecting them and others less.

By enrolling participants in programs to improve self-control, researchers found that individuals consumed less nicotine and caffeine, managed their emotions better, did more housework, spent less impulsively, ate less junk food and also spent more time studying.

Their research found that it could

  Improved self-control, and significantly improved self-control in one area (such as abstaining from food and drink) led to improvements in other areas (such as emotional control, financial habits, or time management).

Researchers have used the strength model of self-control to find that strong willpower can also help individuals act in pro-social ways. Psychologist Nathan DeWall reported that individuals whose wills were sound were more likely to help a stranger, donate money to a sick child, and provide food to a homeless person. Improving our willpower can be a useful way to increase our compassionate behaviors

Most famously, psychologist Walter Mischel's Marshmallow Test is a seminal study that highlights the benefits of having strong willpower.

Michelle's delicious experiment put kids in the hot seat, offering them marshmallows they could eat right away, or they could choose to wait several minutes

This study became very interesting when the researchers followed it up with the children later in life.

They found that children who were able to resist the urge to eat a single marshmallow,

Delay their satisfaction to get a bigger reward later

They were less likely to be on the wrong side of the law

Not obese

Do not suffer from drug abuse

They have higher levels of academic achievement

They have better relationships

most effective

Most healthy physically and psychologically

Third: The mental health benefits
 The Fasting can help your brain

More than a billion Muslims around the world celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. Fasting Ramadan is a requirement for the believers. This means that they are forbidden from having sex, smoking, drinking and eating food from sunrise to sunset. Today we are talking about fasting, which includes only food. Regardless of spiritual or religious reasons,

What are the effects of not eating on human health?
A team of researchers in the United States said that fasting is good for our brain.

 Mark Mattson is a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He and others have studied how dietary restrictions can protect your brain from neurological diseases that get worse over time. Two examples of these diseases are Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, his team found that controlling and restricting calories may improve a person's memory, emotions, and state of mind. Mattson says his studies build on years of research that has confirmed links between the number of calories a person eats and mental ability. Calories are a measure of the energy in food.


 However, if you eat three meals a day, with snacks in between, your body will not have time to use up all of the liver glycogen. Therefore, chemicals for learning and memory are not produced. A report in Johns Hopkins Health Review describes the links. It is said that every time we eat, a sugar called glucose is stored in the liver in the form of glycogen. It takes your body about 10 to 12 hours to use all of the glycogen.

  The report said, “After using glycogen

your body begins to burn fat, which turns into chemicals that neurons use as energy. These chemicals are important for learning, memory, and overall brain health, Physical exercise can also use up glycogen, Mattson said. not surprisingly, he added, "exercise has been shown to have the same positive effect on the brain as fasting."

 The researchers found that

 reducing food intake for at least two days a week can improve neural connections in the hippocampus. This part of the brain controls emotions and plays a role in long-term memory, and a calorie-controlled diet protects neurons from the buildup of amyloid plaques.

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