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More than 8 million individuals in the United States have gout, a disease that can cause intense recurrent episodes of debilitating pain, inflammation, and fever. The cause of gout is the accumulation of urate crystals in joints, which continuously reactivate the immune system, leading to activation of the most common type of immune cell in the blood, neutrophils. These periods of immune reactivation are known as flares, and are driven by a protein complex called the NLRP3 inflammasome.

Recent work from the laboratory of Vishwa Deep Dixit, Professor of Comparative Medicine and Immunobiology, has shown that the ketone body -hydroxybutyrate can specifically inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome. Ketones are byproducts of fat break down in the liver that can serve as alternative metabolic fuels for the brain and heart during periods of low carbohydrate intake, such as fasting, or ketogenic diet. To test if elevating ketones protected against inflammation during gout, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dixit's lab, Emily Goldberg, and Associate Research Scientist and Clinical Veterinarian in Comparative Medicine, Jennifer Asher, and their colleagues collaborated to develop a novel model of gout flares in rats.

They found that feeding rats a high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet increased -hydroxybutyrate levels and protected rats from joint swelling, tissue damage, and systemic inflammation normally seen during gout.

"In isolated neutrophils, -hydroxybutyrate completely blocked NLRP3 inflammasome activation, even when provided at low concentrations that are physiologically achievable through dietary modification," said Goldberg. She speculated that specifically targeting the NLRP3 inflammasome to reduce inflammation during a flare could improve gout patients' outcomes, but more studies need to be performed to test this possibility.

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Materials provided by Yale University. Original written by Ziba Kashef. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Could a ketogenic diet alleviate gout? -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily

Kevin Winter/Getty Images Kyle NewportFeatured ColumnistMarch 1, 2017

If you think WWE superstar Bill Goldberg can roll out of bed and look the way he looks, think again.

Just like everyone else, he has to put in the work to maintain his body. Given that he has been a wrestler (among other professions, like football player and actor) for much of the last two decades, he has to stay in shape.

In an interesting feature with GQ's Mick Rouse, the 50-year-old Goldberg details his daily regime that involves a strict diet. As with every meal plan, he has come up with some basic guidelines:

Those are tips that anyone looking for a healthy lifestyle can follow. Nothing dramaticjust sound advice.

Of course, there's more to a diet than general guidelines. There are the actual meals that are consumed throughout the day. Like any athlete, Goldberg has to put down quite a bit of food in order to stay in wrestling shape:

The amount of food I have to take inI had to take in a huge amount of food back in the day, but the amount that I have to take in now just to seemingly gain a couple of pounds is unfathomable. I am like a machineeven more so than I was beforejust trying to attain, physically, something that is passable, let alone Goldberg-esque.

Although he doesn't give an exact calorie count, the 6'4", 285-pound Goldberg dished on the details of his meal plan:

"Well, the first breakfast I had today, I had six servings of oatmeal, 20 blueberries, and a couple tablespoons of honey on it. Then I trained. Afterwards, I had twelve eggs with two yolks, six pieces of bacon, four pieces of gluten-free toast with avocado. Then a shake. After that I had two gluten-free pizzas with loads and loads of hamburger meat for protein on top of it. Then another shake. My son and I are about to go to Muay Thai, but on the way we're going to have some pho. Some soup and noodles, some shrimp. Then I'll do some training at Muay Thai and on the way home we'll get some pho again for dinner, because the wife hasn't eaten it yet today. Then I'll do the family thing, and then I'll eat again. I don't know what I'll have this evening."

It's a good thing he loves to cook.

Goldberg admitted he has a soft spot for popcorn, but overall he does his best to eat right. If you ever wondered what it takes to be a professional wrestler, one of the best just gave an inside look at the day-to-day life.

[GQ]

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WWE Superstar Goldberg Details Daily Diet That Keeps Him in ... - Bleacher Report

"It is now the most popular diet in Hollywood," said Dr. Alessio Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital, who has led world-renowned research on gluten.

Nonetheless, "this is a medical intervention," he said. "For those who just brush it off that this is a fad and a fashion lifestyle, be considerate of the people that survive on this diet. For people with celiac disease, the gluten-free diet is like insulin for diabetics."

So how did gluten-free eating shift from a rare treatment approach to a trendy way of living? Here's a look at the rise and fall of gluten and how the gluten-free diet has shaped public health over the years.

World War II wreaked havoc across most of Europe. Children became malnourished, with limited access to fruits, vegetables and especially wheat. While that lack weakened the health of most, it seemed to strengthen those with celiac disease.

"This gentleman during World War II noted that the mortality of celiac disease was zero, and he didn't realize immediately why until when the war was over and the mortality went back to the pre-war era," Fasano said.

"Something during the war that was missing was the culprit, and one of the commodities that was missing was wheat. As a matter of fact, flour during the war was made with potato starch and not with wheat," he said.

"There's nothing specifically bad about gluten or specifically good about a gluten-free diet, outside of for these specific -- not uncommon but relatively small -- populations of people with celiac disease, which is about 1% of people in the general population," said Dr. Daniel Leffler, director of research at the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Why exactly can gluten make those with celiac sick? Scientists originally viewed it as a food allergy, but that all changed in the decades to come.

Scientists uncovered the first signs that celiac disease could be an autoimmune disorder -- instead of an allergic one -- in the 1970s, Leffler said.

"This was sort of a surprise, because HLA-DQ2 was already known to be linked to type 1 diabetes, which is another classic autoimmune disease, but not to any of the allergic diseases. So the genetics that people with celiac disease have is much more similar to autoimmune diseases," Leffler said.

It was still thought that only people with celiac disease could have such reactions to gluten, but then the idea emerged that gluten could impact the health of some people without celiac disease, too.

"The new kid on the block is gluten sensitivity or the so-called non-celiac gluten sensitivity," said Dr. Anca Safta, assistant professor and pediatric GI section head at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina.

However, Safta said that since non-celiac gluten sensitivity is still new to the scientific literature, much confusion remains around it as a medical condition. For now, non-celiac gluten sensitivity is viewed as a condition that has the same symptoms of celiac disease but without the immune system damaging the intestines.

"The symptoms are there. Folks do get better once they remove the gluten-containing products, and the very important thing is to exclude celiac disease from the picture, as celiac disease implies that the intestinal mucosa has suffered damage," Safta said.

"As we're learning more, we don't even know if we have the correct nomenclature for non-celiac gluten sensitivity," she said. "It might not be gluten that is causing this non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and it might be a different protein found in wheat, but because of the exclusion of the gluten-containing products for symptoms to improve, that's why it's kind of gotten the name of non-celiac gluten sensitivity."

By this point, however, gluten sensitivity -- whether celiac or not -- had been mostly observed and studied in Europe. That would change in the next decade.

Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital, saw many cases of celiac disease early in his career as a pediatric gastroenterologist in Naples, Italy.

"Celiac disease was considered extremely rare, almost nonexisting in the United States, and that was a quite interesting observation given at the same time in Europe, where I was coming from, there was a rampage of epidemics of celiac disease all over," Fasano said.

"Now you know, whenever you look for it, you find it, provided there are genes and environmental triggers," Fasano said of celiac disease.

"We have a major problem of celiac disease in India for example now, particularly in the northern region of the Punjab," he said. "We have problems of celiac disease in South America. We have a growing rampant problem of celiac disease in China, anywhere that you have the genetic background and the westernization of your diet."

Fasano then published more data, leading to a landmark paper that would change the scientific community's view of gluten in America.

There was a big study in the United States done by Alessio Fasano that found the prevalence of celiac disease in the United States at around 1%, which was 10 times higher than what people thought it was in the United States before that, said Leffler, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

"It really was a critical study," Leffler said.

Once Fasano turned a spotlight on celiac disease in the US, many more studies emerged about gluten sensitivity among Americans, some suggesting that a gluten-free diet may benefit a subgroup of patients with various health disorders.

"There is a possibility that some groups of individuals with other chronic inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune diseases like diabetes or multiple sclerosis, of course autism ... and schizophrenia ... there could be a subgroup of these individuals that could benefit from embracing a gluten-free diet," Fasano said.

"For schizophrenia, for example, we're talking about 20% or 25%. That's not a trivial number," he said. "The same applies with autism, which also the numbers seem to adjust a little bit less, roughly 20%."

As scientists explored curious connections between gluten-free diets and various disorders, celebrities started to weigh in.

"Gluten is crapppp anyway," she tweeted.

At the same time, companies also expanded the types of products they offer to cater to a growing gluten-free consumer base.

At the same time, more consumers who didn't have celiac disease or non-celiac gluten sensitivity took on gluten-free diets by choice.

Yet experts warn that gluten-free eating might not offer benefits if you don't have gluten sensitivity -- and that the diet could do more harm than good.

"We definitely don't recommend a gluten-free diet for weight loss. My dietician will tell you that. The reason why is, when they remove gluten from a lot of these foods to make them taste more appealing, they add more calories or carbohydrates," said Dr. Runa Watkins, assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who specializes in celiac disease.

"The second thing is, being on a gluten-free diet also puts you at risk for other nutritional deficiencies in the long run, such as like B-12 and zinc and folate," she added, "And cost-wise, it can be expensive. So we definitely don't recommend it just because."

All in all, for those who need to consume a gluten-free diet as a treatment for celiac disease, Watkins recommends to keep at it.

"This is a lifetime disorder that is treated with a gluten-free diet to allow healing of the gut. But when this is achieved, it doesn't mean you can go back to a gluten-containing diet," she said.

Fasano hopes the pendulum on gluten's reputation will swing in the opposite direction, from painting gluten as a monster back to depicting it as a simple protein that some can healthily digest and others cannot.

"The pendulum was all the way to left, where before, the pioneer patients with celiac disease really had a hard time to survive," Fasano said.

"Now. the pendulum is all the way to the right, where this is a fashionable diet," he said. "I think that in the future, we will see a readjustment of the pendulum. and hopefully we'll go back to where it belongs. I of course think everybody with celiac disease needs to be on a gluten-free diet. The people that will be affected by other gluten-free-related eating disorders, like wheat allergy or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, should go on a gluten-free diet, and then there is a question mark for others."

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Gluten-free diets: Where do we stand? - CNN

The pancreas can be triggered to regenerate itself through a type of fasting diet, say US researchers.

A type of fasting diet may reprogramme pancreas cells, promote the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells and reduce symptoms of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, a study has showed.

In the study, led by researchers from the University of Southern California, mice were placed on fasting mimicking diet (FMD) for four days each week which showed remarkable reversal of diabetes.

The mice regained healthy insulin production, reduced insulin resistance and demonstrated more stable levels of blood glucose -- even in the later stages of the disease, the researchers said in the paper published in the journal Cell.

The genes normally active in the developing pancreas of embryonic/foetal mice are reactivated in diabetic adult mice when cycling FMD with normal diets.

This increases production of the protein neurogenin-3 (Ngn3) and, as a result, promotes the creation of new, healthy insulin-producing beta cells.

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Researchers also examined pancreatic cell cultures from human donors and found that, in cells from Type 1 diabetes patients, nutrients mimicking fasting also increased expression of the Ngn3 protein and insulin production.

These findings warrant a larger FDA trial on the use of the Fasting Mimicking Diet to treat diabetes patients, said Valter Longo from the University of Southern California.

People with diabetes could one day be treated with an FDA-approved Fasting Mimicking Diet for a few days each month, eat a normal diet for the rest of the month, and see positive results in their ability to control their blood sugar by producing normal levels of insulin and improving insulin function, Longo added.

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Fasting diet could reverse diabetes by regenerating ...

A diet designed to imitate the effects of fasting appears to reverse diabetes by reprogramming cells, a new USC-led study shows.

The fasting-like diet promotes the growth of new insulin-producing pancreatic cells that reduce symptoms of type 1 and type 2 diabetes in mice, according to the study on mice and human cells led by Valter Longo, director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

"Cycles of a fasting-mimicking diet and a normal diet essentially reprogrammed non-insulin-producing cells into insulin-producing cells," said Longo, who is also a professor of biological sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "By activating the regeneration of pancreatic cells, we were able to rescue mice from late-stage type 1 and type 2 diabetes. We also reactivated insulin production in human pancreatic cells from type 1 diabetes patients."

The reprogrammed adult cells and organs prompted a regeneration in which damaged cells were replaced with new functional ones, he said.

The study published on Feb. 23 in the journal Cell, is the latest in a series of studies to demonstrate promising health benefits of a brief, periodic diet that mimics the effects of a water-only fast.

Reversing insulin resistance and depletion

In type 1 and late-stage type 2 diabetes, the pancreas loses insulin-producing beta cells, increasing instability in blood sugar levels. The study showed a remarkable reversal of diabetes in mice placed on the fasting-mimicking diet for four days each week. They regained healthy insulin production, reduced insulin resistance and demonstrated more stable levels of blood glucose. This was the case even for mice in the later stages of the disease.

The diet cycles switched on genes in the adult mice that are normally active only in the developing pancreases of fetal mice. The genes set off production of a protein, neurogenin-3 (Ngn3); thus, generating new, healthy insulin-producing beta cells.

Next steps: clinical study

Longo and his team also examined pancreatic cell cultures from human donors and found that, in cells from type 1 diabetes patients, fasting also increased expression of the Ngn3 protein and accelerated insulin production. The results suggest that a fasting-mimicking diet could alleviate diabetes in humans.

Longo and his research team have amassed evidence indicating several health benefits of the fasting-mimicking diet. Their study published last week in Science Translational Medicine demonstrated that the fasting-mimicking diet reduced risks for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other age-related diseases in human study participants who followed the special diet for five days each month in a three-month span.

Prior studies on the diet have shown potential for alleviating symptoms of the neurodegenerative disease multiple sclerosis, increasing the efficacy of chemotherapy for cancer treatments, and decreasing visceral fat.

"These findings warrant a larger FDA trial on the use of the fasting-mimicking diet to treat human diabetes patients to help them produce normal levels of insulin while improving insulin function," Longo said. "Hopefully, people with diabetes could one day be treated with an FDA-approved fasting-mimicking diet for a few days each month and gain control over their insulin production and blood sugar."

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Materials provided by University of Southern California. Original written by Beth Newcomb. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Fasting-mimicking diet may reverse diabetes: Periodic ...

The risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer may be higher for women who have a poor diet during adolescence and early adulthood, new research finds.

Previous studies have associated an unhealthful diet - particularly one that is low in vegetables, high in refined sugar and carbohydrates, and high in red and processed meats - with chronic inflammation, which may raise the risk of certain cancers.

According to the new study, it is this diet-induced inflammation that may increase a woman's risk of breast cancer prior to menopause.

Study co-author Karin B. Michels, Ph.D. - professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California-Los Angeles - and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the United States. This year, around 252,710 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed, and more than 40,000 women will die from the disease.

"About 12 percent of women in the U.S. develop breast cancer in their lifetimes," notes Michels. "However, each woman's breast cancer risk is different based on numerous factors, including genetic predisposition, demographics, and lifestyle."

For this latest study, Michels and colleagues set out to determine how a pro-inflammatory diet during adolescence or early adulthood might influence women's risk of breast cancer in later life.

The researchers analyzed the data of 45,204 women who were part of the Nurses' Health Study II.

Some of the women completed a food frequency questionnaire in 1991, when they were aged between 27 and 44 years, which disclosed details of their diet in early adulthood. The questionnaire was completed again every 4 years thereafter.

In 1998 - when aged between 33 and 52 - some women completed a food frequency questionnaire that detailed their diet during high school.

Using a technique that associates food intake with markers of inflammation in the blood, the researchers allocated an inflammatory score to each woman's diet. The women were then divided into five groups based on their inflammatory score.

Compared with women who had the lowest inflammatory diet score during adolescence, those who had the highest score were found to be at a 35 percent higher risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer.

Women with the highest inflammatory diet score during early adulthood were found to have a 41 percent increased risk of premenopausal breast cancer, compared with those who had the lowest inflammatory diet score.

A pro-inflammatory diet was not associated with the overall incidence of breast cancer or the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, the team reports.

Although the study cannot prove cause and effect between a pro-inflammatory diet during adolescence or early adulthood and premenopausal breast cancer, the team believes that the results further highlight the importance of a healthful diet.

"Our study suggests that a habitual adolescent/early adulthood diet that promotes chronic inflammation may be another factor that impacts an individual woman's risk.

During adolescence and early adulthood, when the mammary gland is rapidly developing and is therefore particularly susceptible to lifestyle factors, it is important to consume a diet rich in vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes and to avoid soda consumption and a high intake of sugar, refined carbohydrates, and red and processed meats."

Karin B. Michels, Ph.D.

There are a number of limitations to the study. For example, participants reported their adolescent diet years later, so their recollections could be subject to error. Additionally, the researchers did not have access to subjects' measurements of inflammatory blood markers during adolescence or early adulthood.

Learn how exercise is the best lifestyle change for reducing breast cancer recurrence.

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Poor diet during teens, early adulthood may raise breast cancer risk - Medical News Today

Full disclosure: I don't really get juicing. Don't get me wrong, I've slurped down some delicious veggie and ginger concoctions and done my fair share of shots of lemon and turmeric. But spending 10 bucks onor trying to replace breakfast witha beverage that essentially amounts to cold, sugary soup has just never sounded appealing.

Still, there's no accounting for taste, and I don't begrudge folks who enjoy sipping on cold carrot water. But don't pretend that juicing is good for you.

Researchers have tackled the pervasive myths of juice-related health benefits in a study published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In an attempt to cut through confusion surrounding research on nutrition, the study authors reviewed existing reports on various fad diets looking for any sign of actual benefit. Many of these popular dietary choices are supported by the "evidence" of a single study or two, meaning the results haven't been replicated by enough scientists to be taken as truth. Others are based on industry-funded studies that are likely biased, or are based on research that relied on self-reported surveys, where folks are known to lie aboutor simply misremembertheir eating habits.

Unsurprisingly, the cardiologists focused on the effects of fad diets on heart health. But let's be real: if your diet is bad for your heart, can you even pretend it's "healthy"? Nah.

Juicing was called out for its tendency to sneak extra sugarand caloriesinto your diet. When you juice a fruit, you remove the healthful fiber contained therein. You're basically just drinking sugar water with some vitamins in it. You'd be better off eating a few carrots and apples than drinking a whole grocery cart worth of fruits and veggies in one sitting.

"There are things that youre going to have in the whole fruit that you cant get into the juice," Keith Ayoob of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who wasn't involved in the new study, told ABC. "Also the other side is to remember that your gut is a great juicer, it just works more slowly. Let your teeth and digestive tract do what its supposed to do. And the fiber in fruits and vegetables is critical to a healthy diet."

And that leads us to another important point: detoxing. If you're drinking fruit juice instead of eating real food, you might roll your eyes at a doctor's warning about sugar and caloriesafter all, you're going to consume fewer calories overall if you drink 50 carrots a day than if you eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But your body is perfectly capable of filtering out "toxins" without a juice cleanse, and juicing in this manner might actually make your body filter out the bad stuff more slowly. Meanwhile, all those sugar spikes will do a real number on you, and could actually make it harder for you to lose weight in the long run.

Lest you think the researchers just have it in for kale juice, the study's disclosure of conflicts of interest actually reveal that one of the authors serves as a scientific advisor for Pressed Juicery. Dr. Miller is clearly not shilling for Big Juice. Dr. Miller is gonna tell it like it is.

But juicing wasn't the only dietary fad to attract the researchers' ire:

The study also takes a stab at coconut oil, a much-lauded "healthy" fat. The oil has more saturated fat than even butter or lard, but its popularity has surged in recent years due to many reports of health benefits.

But "current claims of documented health benefits of the tropical oils are unsubstantiated," according to the new study, "and use of these oils should be discouraged."

And then there's gluten. Hoo boy, gluten. The study authors conclude thatunless you have a wheat allergy, celiac disease, or are one of the six percent of the population that has some other type of sensitivity to this wheat proteinthere's no sound evidence that cutting gluten out of your diet has any health benefit. But unlike the whole juicing thing, there's no harm in avoiding gluten if you really want toas long as you're not filling up the resulting gaps in your daily food intake with foods high in calories or cholesterol.

The bottom line? Any diet that has you swapping food for sugar water is probably misguided. And while your daily dietary needs may very, you probably already know what a heart-healthy diet looks like: leafy greens, fresh fruits, and taking it easy when it comes to calories.

All in all, the analysis is a good reminder of just how confusing it can be to navigate the landscape of nutritional research. Just remember: a single study doesn't mean anything. Scientists need to reproduce the same results over and over again, in different circumstances and settings, to determine how likely something is to hold true. So stop worrying about new research praising the health benefits of wine or demonizing your favorite wheat product. Instead, stick to the things you know are healthyand enjoy the rest in moderation.

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Juicing isn't actually good for you and your diet is probably dumb - Popular Science

Ketogenic diet shown safe, effective option for some with rare and severest form of epilepsy Science Daily "From our past research, we know the ketogenic diet is effective in approximately one-third of adults with epilepsy who are resistant to traditional anti-seizure drugs," says Mackenzie C. Cervenka, M.D., associate professor of neurology and director of ... and more »

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Ketogenic diet shown safe, effective option for some with rare and severest form of epilepsy - Science Daily

For the past 17 years, Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine in the X-Men movies, which means that for nearly two decades, the actor has had to stay on a strict diet his character is often shirtless and slashing his way out of difficult situations, so no dad bods were allowed on set. But now, with the release of Logan, Jackman is finally putting Wolverine (and the Wolverine diet) to bed.

Jimmy Fallon, always the considerate soul, wanted to celebrate the end of Jackmans X-Men fasting during the actors Tonight Show appearance last Friday. And so, toward the end of their segment, the late-night host summoned his buddy Mario Batali from backstage, who surprised Jackman with a gigantic bowl of pasta and a hearty pour of wine. This clip captures the pure joy of kicking your diet to the curb and diving head-first into a pile of delicious carbohydrates.

Hugh Jackman Breaks His "Wolverine Fast" After Whisper Challenge [YouTube] All Video Interludes [E] Logan Review [The Verge]

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Watch Hugh Jackman Shred the Wolverine Diet to Smithereens - Eater

A diet that mimics fasting temporarily put mice in a starvation state, reversing diabetes in the animals, according to a new study. The diet was also shown to reduce the risk factors in people with pre-diabetes

Research by investigators at the University of Southern California showed the special, fasting-mimicking diet triggers the development of insulin-producing cells in mice with diabetes. The study was published in the journal Cell.

In humans, an earlier study of the diet reduced the risk factors of diabetes, such as elevated blood sugar, in people who were headed toward development of the disease. An article on the diet in humans appeared in Science Translational Medicine.

In both Type 1 diabetes and in the later stages of Type 2 diabetes, the beta cells of the pancreas are destroyed. But the authors said the diet appears to "reboot" the body, switching on genes that trigger the release of stem cells, master cells responsible for organ development.

More than fasting required

However, fasting alone is not the key to restoring insulin levels. Scientists said refeeding after the brief starvation diet, with specially calibrated nutrients, is critical to kickstarting the production of new beta cells.

FILE - A woman fills a syringe as she prepares to give herself an injection of insulin.

The process of stem cell activation is the same as seen in embryos to stimulate organ growth, according to gerontology professor Valter Longo, the director of USC's Longevity Institute and senior author of both studies. He said the fasting-mimicking diet can be used to reprogram cells without any genetic alterations.

"So basically the system is using some of the same program that we use during embryonic and fetal development to regenerate the pancreas once the food comes back around," he said. "And that's the trick. It's not so much the starvation. It's really the combination of the starvation and the refeeding." And, he stressed, "the refeeding's got to be a high-nourishment one."

Study participants put on the high-fat, low-calorie, low-protein diet consumed between 800 and 1,100 calories daily for five days in a row each month for three months. After each fast, they were refed with nutrient-rich foods.

Researchers found fasting triggered the production of a protein called Ngn3, which generated new, healthy beta cells that secreted insulin. They saw production of insulin in a dish in pancreatic cells extracted from mice and from healthy human donors and patients with both types of diabetes.

Scientists found the diet replaced damaged insulin-producing cells with new functioning ones in mice placed on the diet for four days.

Heart disease, cancer risks

The investigators have also amassed evidence that the fasting-mimicking diet reduces the risk of age-related diseases, including heart disease and cancer. It may also hold benefits for people with multiple sclerosis, said researchers.

FILE - A woman who suffers from diabetes is seen walking on a treadmill as part of an exercise program to help control the disease.

But Longo said people with diabetes should not try the diet at home yet because it can drop blood sugar to perilously low levels if they don't know what they are doing. "We warn people that, particularly [for people with] Type 1 or patients that inject themselves with insulin, it can be very risky or even lethal," Longo cautioned.

He said investigators were poised to begin larger human clinical trials of the fasting-mimicking diet in the next six months.

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Fasting Diet Reverses Diabetes in Mice - Voice of America

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