more benefits from fasting....

This is from yesterday's Daily Mail

Wartime diet of regular fasting slashes prostate cancer risk

Men who halve the amount they normally eat for a week or two once a month could markedly lower their chances of a tumour at a young age.

Animal studies carried out at the University of Minnesota showed wartime eating habits significantly delayed the onset of cancer.

Researcher Professor Margot Cleary, from The Hormel Institute at the University of Minnesota, said humans may have evolved to respond to cycles of feast and famine.

'My theory is this is how all humans ate until fairly recently.

'We would have periods of restriction and then, when there was a holiday or it was harvest time, there would be periods of plenty.

'Nowadays, it's a permanent feast, especially in developed countries.'

It is worth reading.

I've not found the paper yet but it looks like this :

Abstract: Prospective studies indicate that as body weight and/or energy intake increase so does the risk for prostate cancer. A protective effect of energy restriction on development of spontaneous prostate tumors in Lobund-Wistar rats and tumors developing from transplanted prostate tumor tissue or cells in mice and rats have been published, but a mechanism of action has not been identified. Recent introduction of the TRAMP (transgenic adenocarcinoma mouse prostate) mouse provides a model that shares characteristics with human prostate cancer. Here, TRAMP mice are being used to evaluate their response to chronic and intermittent calorie restriction. The insulin like growth factor (IGF) axis is being investigated to determine if it is involved in this protective process. TRAMP mice are enrolled in adlibitum-fed, intermittent-restricted and chronic restricted groups in both longitudinal and cross sectional study to determine prostate cancer incidence, latency and metastasis rate, A 25% reduction in caloric intake is being utilized. Initial findings indicate that more of the intermittent-restricted mice are surviving until the designated end point of the study. Evaluation of histopathology is underway and we are attempting to identify a metabolic pathway to target for prevention and/treatment strategies.

Bonorden MJL, Rogozina OP, Kluczny CM, Grossmann ME , Grambsch PL , Grande JP, Perkins S, Lokshin A, Cleary MP. Intermittent calorie restriction delays prostate tumor detection and increases survival time in TRAMP mice. Nutr Cancer, in press.