Summary of “Can Fasting Save Your Life?”
To get access to my 12-page PDF summary of this book, click here.
Fasting to heal
In the book Can Fasting Save Your Life?, Dr. Toshia Myers and Dr. Alan Goldhamer lead us through a multi-faceted exploration of medically supervised, prolonged water-only fasting, laying out how this treatment can help prevent, manage, and even reverse metabolic disorders and other conditions.
The authors are affiliated with TrueNorth Health Center (TNHC) in Santa Rosa, California, the largest facility in the world specializing in medically supervised water-only fasting. Since its founding in 1984, TNHC has supervised over 25,000 fasting patients.
Fasting for obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease
The main topic of the book is that water-only fasting is particularly effective at addressing metabolic-related conditions, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. This is good news, because the number of chronically ill people in the U.S. and the world is at an all-time high, even with the prescription drugs many people take to combat them. In the U.S., more than half of adults suffer from chronic diseases.
Chapters 1, 2, and 3 offer three background pieces that prime us for the main new claims about the effectiveness of prolonged water-only fasting. Chapter 1 provides an overview of various types of therapeutic fasting, including intermittent and prolonged fasting models. Chapter 2 looks back to the origins of water-only fasting in the U.S. Chapter 3 reviews the safety record of modern-day fasting—spoiler alert, there has never been a single death associated with more than 25,000 prolonged water-only fasts supervised at TNHC.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 cover the evidence supporting fasting’s ability to reverse metabolic dysfunction, obesity, and hypertension. The authors explain what happens to our bodies when we consistently overeat and how fasting temporarily switches our metabolism to a fat-burning process that leads to weight loss, lower blood pressure, and sometimes a “reset” of our immune system. The authors emphasize that fasting is not a one-and-done solution or cure. Periodic fasting is a healthy practice alongside other good habits.
Fasting for autoimmune diseases and cancers, early days
Chapter 7 discusses preliminary theories for why fasting may sometimes affect autoimmunity and cancer for the better. A number of case studies provided throughout the book concern patients who experienced remissions of various types of these conditions.
What is a fast like?
Chapter 8 and several appendixes cover the steps involved in pre-fasting, fasting, and the refeeding stage, providing excellent detail for those interested in further exploring a prolonged fast. Chapter 9 reviews best practices for optimal health in the areas of nutrition, hydration, sleep, physical activity, and sunlight.
The authors are bullish on the potential of fasting to help with the chronic diseases that claim so many lives today and even with conditions such as autoimmune diseases and cancer.
To get access to my 12-page PDF summary of this book, click here.