Those who have intermittently fasted for decades are less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19 compared to people who don’t practice the eating plan, according to a new US study.
The small study, published July 1 in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention and Health, builds on previous research examining the benefits of intermittent fasting.
The researchers looked at 205 patients who had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, between March 2020 and February 2021 before vaccines became widely available. Patients who reported fasting regularly at least once a month for an average of 40 years or more had a lower rate of hospitalization or death from infection.
Patients were selected from participants who were enrolled in a voluntary health registry at Intermountain Healthcare, a nonprofit network of 33 Utah-based hospitals. The researchers chose this cohort specifically because of the large number of Mormons living in the state. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints typically do not eat or drink for two consecutive meals on the first Sunday of each month, according to the study.
Previous research suggests that fasting not only helps burn fat, but also offers health benefits. Studies have shown that fasting can help control inflammation by reducing the number of pro-inflammatory cells that are released into the blood. Fasting also triggers autophagy, a process by which the body breaks down and destroys old and damaged cells.
Fasting also switches your energy source from glucose to fat and increases the amount of free fatty acids like linoleic acid circulating in your body.
While the researchers said more work is needed to better understand why intermittent fasting is linked to better outcomes for COVID-19 patients, studies have shown that severe cases of COVID-19 infection are typically associated with hyperinflammation .
“There is a pocket on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 that linoleic acid fits into, and it can make the virus less able to stick to other cells,” according to Dr. Benjamin Horne, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology. from Intermountains. Healthcare and co-senior author of the article.
Horne noted that the patients in his study have been practicing intermittent fasting for decades, not just a few weeks, and said it’s important for patients, particularly those who are older, pregnant, diabetic, or have heart or kidney disease , talk to your family doctor first before trying it yourself.
The study found that of the 205 COVID-19 patients, 11 percent of those who fasted ended up hospitalized or died, compared to 28.8 percent of patients who did not fast.
“This finding was found in younger and older individuals, was present regardless of race or ethnicity, and was not dependent on other cardiac risk factors, comorbidities, or behaviors. However, periodic fasting did not predict whether or not a subject would become infected with SARS-CoV-2,” the authors wrote in the article.
“Fasting remained significant in all multivariable analyses.”
The researchers also noted that prior to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, Utah was one of only two US states with a COVID-19 case fatality rate of less than one percent. In addition, Utah had the lowest median age in the US and ranked as the state with the fourth lowest rate of coronary heart disease, according to the study.
“A low case fatality rate could also have occurred in Utah because the state has the lowest smoking rate in the US, has limited racial/ethnic diversity … and had various health care system efforts that may have limited the seriousness of the cases,” the document says. said.
“Finally, Utah has the lowest per capita ethanol consumption in the US which may have limited the spread of COVID-19 in bars and other social venues, but a connection between alcohol and severity of illness has not been confirmed. COVID-19”.
The study said periodic fasting remained an independent predictor of lower risk of hospitalization and mortality, even after their analyzes were adjusted for factors such as age, smoking, alcohol use and ethnicity. The authors suggest that the relatively higher rate of periodic fasting in Utah compared to other states may have contributed to the lower case fatality rates in the state.
“While fasting is not a panacea or quick fix for health problems, low-frequency fasting improves cardiometabolic health even without significant weight loss, and multiple biological mechanisms and epidemiological findings support the idea that fasting constant may limit the severity of COVID-19,” Dr. the study authors wrote.
Some of the limitations of the study include the observational nature of the study and there could be selection bias for the participants who were enrolled. Fasting history was also self-reported, which could result in inaccurate data, the authors cautioned.
The researchers in the longitudinal observational study, meaning that patients were evaluated over a period of time to detect any changes, emphasized that intermittent fasting was not a substitute for vaccination, but could become a complementary therapy to vaccination. .