There is a diet called "fasting two times a week diet" or "the 5:2 diet". You eat only 25% of your normal intake two times per week, and the rest of the week you eat extra to make up for it. It claims to make you healthier, help protect against Alzheimers and cancer, and make your body get "younger".
Horizon: Eat, Fast And Live Longer is the BBC documentary about the 5:2 diet. http://vimeo.com/54089463
With five feast days and two fast days, you can have normal food for most of the week and only cut down for 48 hours.
...
And, best of all, you only have to calorie count for two days.
Those days aren’t total fasts but do involve eating a lot less than usual – 25% of what you’d eat to maintain your weight.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/dieting/52-diet-kate-harrison-revolutionary-1712393
Does anyone have any substantial proof of this being true, or wrong? Are there any other studies of this?
What I am most curious about is if the "fasting" improves health.
Studies conducted by the Baltimore National Institute on Aging reveal that fasting once or twice a week lowers Insulin-like growth factor 1 ( IGF-1 ) levels; a lower IGF-1 level encourages fat burning and can protect the brain against diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.3 Tests conducted on mice have revealed that controlling the levels of IGF-1 through fasting can promote longevity; high levels of IGF-1 in later life promote aging, although it is needed in youth for growth.2 However, the general medical consensus is that fasting has not been researched extensively enough to determine if there are benefits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5:2_diet
According to the wiki link, and according to the documentary it increases life length. It has been tested on rats and they live longer when they fast 2 days a week.
What I am looking for is not "I think it's bad because I have heard balanced diet is good". What I am looking for is some substantial proofs, some other research than what I have sent preferably done on humans.
There are claims of 5:2 being unsubstantial and untested.
What the NHS says:
The evidence surrounding the benefits of the 5:2 diet and intermittent fasting (IF) are limited when compared with other types of weight-loss techniques.