Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
STUDY FINDS: Fasting Shrinks Men's Testicles While Testosterone Plummets
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Watch the video here: https://www.livelongerformula.com/content/fasting-shrinks-mens-testicles-while-testosterone-plummets
Are you following health trends that actually harm your health? In my eye-opening masterclass "The 7 Popular But Deadly Health Fads," I reveal how common health practices promoted by influencers and gurus might be ravaging your gut, accelerating disease, and shaving years off your life.
Discover which popular diets, supplements, and health rituals are secretly sabotaging your health and learn what to do instead. I explain why these seemingly healthy habits are damaging your body and provide actionable alternatives for true longevity.
Register for free access to this essential health information at
https://www.livelongerformula.com
-------------
Check out the first volume in the How to Actually Live Longer book series on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4dDXjxc
The Live Longer Formula is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Fasting and Testosterone Study
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, it's Christian. Welcome back. Today, I want us to look at a study that shows how fasting shrinks men's testicles and decimates their sex hormones like testosterone.
00:00:16
Speaker
um This is yet another example of a study where they look at a very specific thing. Like in this case, they're ah looking at the functioning of the urogenital system.
00:00:32
Speaker
okay And this is, again, a prime example where they look at it from a very sort of narrow lens and They're okay reporting a good result and rationalizing away or ignoring negative aspects so that you know the the fasting induced. And even today we have a prime example where they actually label the negative effects like like shrinking testicles.
00:01:06
Speaker
as beneficial. okay Now, I don't know about you, and you know you do you, if you you would want your testicles to be smaller, but I don't think most of us guys are out there you know knocking our testicles into tables when we walk in our drawers
Exploring Hypogonadism and Low Testosterone in Men
00:01:24
Speaker
when we're opening them. I don't think we have a problem with our testicles being too big.
00:01:27
Speaker
We have a huge issue of hypogonadism and low testosterone in men and making them small ain't going to help that, that's for sure. And then when it comes to women, because there's also women viewers and listeners, I am sure that most women out there would not be too perturbed by the size of their guys' huevos, let's say. And i don't I certainly don't think they would want him engaging in interventions such as fasting that decimates his testosterone. And when you see the figure, if that doesn't shock you and make you rethink fasting as ah any sort of health or longevity intervention, i don't know what will. So let's let's look at it. So the journal...
00:02:14
Speaker
nutrients it's called the paper is called eight days of water only fasting promotes favorable changes in the functioning of the urogenital system of middle-aged healthy men i should also um also mention if you're on the podcast the video link will be down below. You can click that and actually watch me go through the study. I will walk you talk you through and walk you through everything, all the numbers and stuff. But it does kind of help just to kind of look at the tables that they have presented there. But it's not necessary. But if you if you prefer watching this on YouTube, there's a ah link down below in them in the description of the podcast. So the first thing you have to ah um keep in mind is so this is...
Study Details: Participants and Methodology
00:02:59
Speaker
A study of middle-aged healthy men. They're healthy. they They didn't have prostate issues. okay So I would, like based as you'll see later, based on these results of the study, if someone had prostate issues, maybe in an alternate universe,
00:03:16
Speaker
far, far away where I had you know bumped my head into too many walls growing up and and and you know I wasn't thinking right, maybe then i could I could make a case for using fasting if a guy has prostate issues. But in a healthy middle-aged man, i don't think shrinking their balls and and and their testosterone plummeting is worth any purported potential benefits.
00:03:43
Speaker
to their urogenital system. So let's look at it. 14 middle-aged men. um ah There's a lot of details here. I'm just going to get to what I think is important for us to look at. So let's see where we start. Where do we start?
00:03:59
Speaker
So what did they do? Okay, so the guys were between 35 and 60 years old. They did not smoke or consume alcohol at all. So they looked like they were pretty health conscious. And how do we know that?
00:04:10
Speaker
They state here, before this study, all the participants practiced water-only fasting of various durations. The longest period of fasting by one of the guys was 42 days. He did 42 days. okay so That's like six weeks. Wait.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah, six weeks. And then the shortest was three days. So these guys had done fasting. Some had tried it. Some had done more. But clearly they're health conscious because, you know, fasting, people that fast, like not just once but, you know, multiple times, they're health conscious people. So fasting selects for health conscious people fasting.
00:04:47
Speaker
people that want a shortcut with weight loss. that that That's also possible. So they have experience with fasting. um So what else?
00:04:58
Speaker
Their body weight was 79 kg, almost 80 kg, plus minus 10 kg. So They weren't overweight, I think their BMI was just above the normal, like around I think the 26 which is just at the beginning of the overweight um a range of BMI. Body fat begin with, plus minus
00:05:27
Speaker
Fat-free mass 81. So, okay, so the BMI index was just 25.01. So they're just at the upper, just 0.1 over the the normal the top of the normal range for BMI. So they weren't like massively overweight. They were healthy guys.
00:05:43
Speaker
and clearly health conscious if they if they don't drink and have fasted before. So what was
Impact of Fasting on Hormonal Levels
00:05:47
Speaker
the protocol? Very simple, it was an eight day fast. They measured some biomarkers. Let's look at the biomarkers. So they measured PSAT, PSAF, FSH, so follicle stimulating hormone, luteinizing hormone, prolactin, total testosterone,
00:06:03
Speaker
ah free testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin, DHEA, cholesterol, and beta-hydroxybutyrate just because you know it's a ketone and it's interesting. if you're If you're doing a fasting study, might as well look at ketones. So here's the before, here's the after. So I would just mention...
00:06:22
Speaker
things that matter when it comes to like men's sexual health and keeping testosterone high. and you know Just just the thing the thing that makes us men right is having testosterone. So their total testosterone before the eight days of water-only fasting was 594, okay, plus minus So almost across the board or the mean.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then after eight days, it was under 400. It was 385 plus minus they went from almost testosterone two excuse me to under four hundred testosterone That's a change of 35%. So the eight days of fasting made their testosterone plummet, plummet 85%.
00:07:16
Speaker
eighty five percent The free testosterone what went from mean to plus minus point six that that's a change after 8 days of water-only fasting of 27.68%. So almost drop in free testosterone. that went up from 51.6 to 69.
00:07:39
Speaker
then the six hormone bindning globuin that went up from fifty one point six to sixty nine So it increased by And then the DHEA, dehydroepiandrosterone,
00:07:52
Speaker
that's another protective hormone that can be converted to various androgens including DHT, the most anabolic one, the the most potent one that doesn't aromatize into estrogen, valuable hormone. And DHEA can go down that pathway if your environment in your body is not very estrogenic.
00:08:11
Speaker
although DHEA can also be turned to estrogen. So that's you know it's important to for the whole environment in the body to be anabolic and and not estrogenic for it to go down the right pathways towards the androgens.
00:08:25
Speaker
but ah So the DHEA went from 3.39 2.64. That was a lowering So to summarize,
00:08:37
Speaker
The total testosterone plummeted 35% under plummeted almost 28%. three eight five mean free testosterone plummeted almost twenty eight percent Sex hormone binding globulin goes up 25%. It bind sex hormones and basically, depending on the situation, can actually make them not bioavailable to the body, but it's also carrier. right But the more you have ah the more hormones you have bound to SHBG, the less actually bioavailable, at least in that point in time they are at that time. And then again, DHEA, protective hormone.
00:09:21
Speaker
It can also become androgens in the right conditions. That plummeted 22%. twenty two percent That's a lot. That's more than a fifth.
00:09:33
Speaker
And the testosterone drop is like more than a third.
Personal Experiences and Critique of Fasting Benefits
00:09:36
Speaker
And like at 594 plus minus obviously there' there were some guys with testosterone, which is good. But, you know,
00:09:47
Speaker
And I have um at one time around 2019, I can't remember exactly what my testosterone was. It was around 600. And I felt horrible. um At that time, it was just after kind of doing keto for for a bunch of time. I was doing like intermittent fasting. I tried some longer fasts. I was doing carnivore and then i had parasites and I did some hormone testing, some stool testing. My whole situation was pretty dire. and I think I did that because of doing those fat diets and and and and cold plunges and all this nonsense. you know um But so my at that low point, I measured my testosterone testosterone and it was about 600, maybe a little bit more than then what these guys had as a mean here. And I'll tell you, I felt like trash, like trash. My libido sucked. This was, again, in 2019.
00:10:40
Speaker
And so if I felt like that with a testosterone of 600 and these guys went from 594 total testosterone to under how is that?
00:10:51
Speaker
that ever be considered a positive result. And here's the here's here's what we're told, is fasting rejuvenates you, so you're going to build back better, hashtag build back better, trademark.
00:11:05
Speaker
That's P.S. Why don't they do follow-up with these guys to see what what their testosterone looks like? Because it's very likely not going to be higher, it's much more likely to be lower.
00:11:17
Speaker
you know If they're lucky, it will go back to where it was, because you lose muscle mass. It's a stressor on the body. The body's metabolic rate goes down after the fast even three months later like we covered in the previous video which you can go and check out both on the podcast and and on YouTube. So why would we assume that this sort of shock to the body, this sort of stress to the body will result in the body building back better when the metabolic rate has been lowered and you've lost muscle mass.
00:11:44
Speaker
you know You always lose lean, and not just muscle mass, but all sorts of metabolic active tissue like organs, and and you know the liver, shrinks, all and all that all those organs, kidneys. So why would we assume, especially these guys were you know on average 44 years of age, some were sixty somewhere 60, somewhere in that sort of a range of over 44, over 45. So at that age, it's even harder. And the the older you get, the more likely your testosterone is going to be dropping because of you know accumulated damage, stress, lipid peroxidation over the years. Why would we ever want to engage in interventions that decimate our sex hormones, our protective hormones? Why the hell would we do that? It doesn't make any sense, especially these guys who are healthy already. So if they're healthy...
00:12:39
Speaker
what's the Why would you put them through this rigorous, strenuous 8-day fast? For what purpose? rights Let's look at the other variables.
Testicular Volume, Fertility, and Hormonal Health
00:12:50
Speaker
Testicular volume.
00:12:52
Speaker
left the left testicle slightly larger than the right it seems like the left is always big the the bigger one i don't know is that maybe my sample size is very small um the testicular volume left testicle went from 21.48 15.55 so the left testicle here shrunk by an average of twenty seven point six per cent man the left testicle really got hammered here Now, the testicular volume of the right testicle went from 21 to 18.83.
00:13:25
Speaker
to eighteen point eight three okay That was a reduction in the right testicle's volume. the oh okay's just or Let me just say that again. So the left testicle shrunk by almost That's almost,
00:13:43
Speaker
well i guess almost but you know almost a third of the testicle shrunk Is that ever a good thing? I don't think anything that causes your testicles to shrink is a good thing. So put together the total testicular volume went from 41.78
00:14:04
Speaker
to 34.38. So the total testicular volume of these guys across the board, on average, let's say, ah statistic the testicles shrank by 17.72%, so almost 18% total testicular volume loss. Now that is kind of close to a fifth of the testicles.
00:14:27
Speaker
just degenerating that's what happened that and this is like the guys here that wrote the paper they were very sort of tiptoe around the this stuff so let me just see where it was so water uh water loss so they're saying it's it's water water loss causing the the testicles to shrink um so i don't know about hold on wait where is this in the way um let me see where it is
00:15:02
Speaker
Hold on, I have it here. So in the paper, they state, let me just move this out of the way. total So this is earlier in the paper. Total testicular volume is an important indicator related to the testes' capacity for sperm spermatogenesis, making sperm.
00:15:20
Speaker
as well as steroidogenesis, testosterone production. So total testicular volume is an important indicator to making sperm and making testosterone. Importantly, a reduction in total testicular volume is considered as a clinical symptom of both a decline in semen quality and hypogonalism when your testosterone is low.
00:15:43
Speaker
However, They basically said, later later on in the paper, taking into account the positive changes in the results of the uroflometry test, so they were like measuring like urine flow and stuff like that, and prostate volume, and there was other stuff they were measuring, but i don't think that's for what we're looking at here, sex hormones, testicular size, that that's not as important right now, otherwise this video will be two hours. So they said,
00:16:13
Speaker
taking into account the positive changes in the results of the uroflometry test the volume of the testis and prostate metabolic and reproductive hormones related to the urogenital system and the improvement of the quality of life of the studied men after eight days of water only fasting Systematic use of caloric restriction or the use of intermittent or continuous fasting of short duration should be considered as a method of prophylaxis or health therapy.
00:16:43
Speaker
um So this goes back to what I said earlier. i've I've seen already so many studies where they're seeing like bad things happen, right? Like metabolic function is decimated and so on, loss of lean mass, things like that. And yet they're always saying...
00:17:05
Speaker
good things are happening. This is good. We should do more. This should be recommended. We should study this more. They never say, you know, we should be we should be careful because they, like I said, they just at the start said this total testicular volume is an important indicator related to making sperm, making testosterone, and a reduction of total testicular volume is considered a clinical symptom in both a de decline in semen quality and hypogonadism, so low testosterone. So they said that yeah They stated that earlier in the paper.
00:17:38
Speaker
Yet, when the guy's balls shrank 18% and their total testosterone plummeted 35%, that wasn't a problem.
00:17:50
Speaker
That wasn't a problem. I just want to kind of... it dumped a lot of information on you there, but just kind of process that for a second.
00:18:02
Speaker
How is this a positive thing? Your testosterone dropping 35%.
00:18:09
Speaker
i I mean, i i I don't, like I'm trying, I'm trying to kind of think how is this a positive thing? Now, the thing is, you might not feel the effects of low T immediately. That's not how it happens. It happens over months, sometimes years, where this decline in testosterone, this sort of hypogonadism that develops as we kind of age and our our body starts deteriorating, that creeps up on you. And then, you know, one day you can't get it up. You can't, you know, you can't go to, you don't feel like going to the gym. You you can't build muscle. You can't maintain muscle.
00:18:45
Speaker
You're getting, start getting fatter, just doing the same things as you always used to do. That's how hypogonadism or or low T creeps up on a guy. And again, as you saw in the previous video, if you if you saw it, feel free to check it out.
00:19:02
Speaker
With even a 10-day fast, even when they give them like carbs and juice and and and honey, that that reduces some of the lean mass they're going to lose and so that reduces some of the stress on the on the guys.
00:19:13
Speaker
People lose lean mass. They lose muscle mass. They lose metabolically active tissue. they're um Their metabolic rate goes down. So on top of that, when we kind of piece together more things that are happening through other studies like this one, so you' met um all that stuff happened in the previous video that we mentioned, all this stuff happening with your testicles shrinking, um what why are we doing this? Then they said, the other thing they said, so they were saying that it's,
00:19:47
Speaker
the If the testicles are too big, they they can also, like ah like an enlarged prostate, they can also kind of cause discomfort, right? So I think that's where they're they're like, oh the the guy's testicles shrank. So that that was a good thing because it it's won't cause them discomfort. Now, again, I don't i had one friend back in like high school. He was a good friend, still is. We don't talk enough, but he had massive cojones. Like, we we we'd be out with girls and stuff at the cafes, and this would wear, like, these super tight jeans.
00:20:20
Speaker
He'd just kind of spread his... He'd man-spread, you know? And, like, his balls were just, like, bulging through the dam through the damn jeans. And, like, we'd be, like, with, like, you know, girls and stuff, and, like, they they would, like, just...
00:20:36
Speaker
stare at his junk. It was kind of hilarious. and But like i don't I never heard him complaining that they were like getting in his way and causing his quality of life to to diminish, you know? So look at this. So I will ah get back to this here. Let me just highlight it so I don't miss it. So again, we're going to go back just quickly. So you see, the the the left testicle on average was about 21.48, the volume.
00:21:06
Speaker
the the The right one was 21, okay? Now, here they state lower down. It is considered excuse me it is considered that testticular volume should be between eleven m l and total testicular volume greater than 20 ml.
00:21:25
Speaker
okay um
00:21:32
Speaker
Okay, so above above that, sorry, I should have started there. In our research formula, okay, so they use the formula, both testicular volume and total testicular volume before and after the eight days of of water fasting remained within physiological limits despite their significant reduction after this intervention.
00:21:53
Speaker
Okay. So, because even though there was a significant reduction in testicular volume and total testicular volume, because they after the fast they remained within physiological limits, that's not a problem for the researchers.
00:22:14
Speaker
That's fine. it's you It's like... You go to the doctor, feel like trash, and they do your blood work, all this sort of useless blood work that they usually run, cholesterol and all this nonsense, and they tell you you're you're within range, you're within physiological limits.
Criticism of Scientific Perspectives on Fasting
00:22:33
Speaker
So the best I can offer you is to put you on an SSRI because you you must it must all be in your head. Like, that's like, that's unfortunately how reductionistic, materialistic science looks at a lot of, like, so they're taking these guys in, they're decimating their their their testosterone and sex hormones in general, with protective hormones. Their balls shrink almost 20%.
00:22:56
Speaker
And because because they're within the physiological limits, that is not a problem. So it it seems like it's a very robotic way of doing research. They're not thinking about... It's it's only the outcomes on this very specific urogenital system, potential benefits angle or lens. They're not thinking about quality of life. They're not thinking about what could happen...
00:23:25
Speaker
six months, six years down the line when these guys experience this stress which has beyond just the the the testicles shrinking and the um the testosterone dropping like we covered in a previous video there's other horrible things happening that remain after three months which means they're likely gonna hang around for even longer and then in future videos there's other bad things that are happening during a fast. You will not believe how many more videos I have in the pipeline.
00:24:02
Speaker
You will not believe. That's why I'm um' actually you at the moment, this this is part of my um synthesizing all all my kind of research for my book, which will be my next book, which be on fasting, specifically just on fasting. Even though I had a whole chapter on this in my how to actually live longer volume. One book, I believe...
00:24:22
Speaker
We need to really give you just a full sort of picture beyond the fairy tales of rejuvenation and autophagy, right, and and fat loss.
00:24:36
Speaker
Because that is a fairy tale that is dellued deluded to think that that's what happens. Fasting is not a rejuvenating process. Fasting is a degenerative process And any healing, and and I'm not saying people don't heal things while fasting, but that can be explained. Trust me, I will cover that in the future. Trust me.
00:24:59
Speaker
That all of that, ah or at least most of that can be explained, why it happens during fasting. But the thing to remember is, you are, any healing that happens when there's not new nutrients and energy coming into the body, Any healing that happens, a lot of that robbing the body elsewhere.
00:25:17
Speaker
robbing the body elsewhere to get those nutrients to support those healing processes. So other things are getting, are going without, other processes are going without while that healing is happening. So that's something to remember. So I think um there was other points here I wanted to cover very briefly. i don't want to make every video one hour long, but um yeah, so this kind of...
00:25:44
Speaker
um
00:25:47
Speaker
It's kind of the most the most salient points here. Now, again, they were looking at maximum maximum urinary flow rate. They were looking at uroflometry. So they were kind of measuring how the guys were urinating. So from that aspect, right the reduction of the volume of the process ah prostate um and the testicles, which in the case of the prostate may may be associated with lesser pressure on the urethra,
00:26:15
Speaker
So they were looking at some other aspects, but here's the thing. here's Again, ah I think I started with this. is These guys didn't have prostate enlargement, prostate issues. They didn't have symptoms of kind of problems with the prostate, benign prostate hyperplasia. so if a guy is healthy and he's doing healthy behaviors, why would we, and he doesn't have symptoms with your genital system, why would we decimate his sex hormones, testosterone, and DHEA and shrink his balls almost 20% prophylactically?
00:26:54
Speaker
Like, why would we do that? Now, if a guy does have ah the benign prostate hyperplasia or some kind of enlarged prostate, it kind of makes sense that fasting, which is again a degenerative process, it makes sense that the that gland might shrink because the testicles are shrinking, the liver is shrinking, the kidneys are shrinking, muscle mass is shrinking, the bones are getting degenerated. That is what happens when you starve. It's not rocket science.
00:27:33
Speaker
the mainstream narrative of you just start burning fat and you enter ketosis and and then you you rejuvenate, your cells decide, even though you you might be dying, you could well be like literally dying of starvation. Imagine the body gets for five days or six days or seven days or three days, it gets the signal there's no food coming in. Do you think the body, like how
00:28:00
Speaker
infantile and naive is it to think that the body, when given signals of starvation, imminent but possible death, because there's no no food coming into it, why would the body start rejuvenating?
00:28:18
Speaker
Like, just if we just take a step back and and examine this, this is almost like a spell that has been cast on the the the collective psyche of humanity, at least the the more health conscious people, right? This is ah kind of like, it's been,
00:28:40
Speaker
it's been sort of, how do i How do I say it without sounding like a tinfo hat guy? um This is a narrative that has been spun that has been quite distorted from the reality of what actually happens. So you already see in this study what happens to these guys. And again, peace these negative effects, even though they said they were positive effects, which is like, up are we in the opposite line here? These negative effects manifest in months and years. they don't if If they manifest it immediately, I think that's the the the insidious thing about fasting. If the effects were immediately immediately horrible in all in all ways, well, a lot of people wouldn't do it. Now, I do i have spoken to a lot of people, including clients, that um they just felt horrible, let's say, with a 24-hour fast or longer. And they're like, this feels horrible. i'm not going to do it.
00:29:39
Speaker
I just won't live as long. Screw it. um So a lot of people, I think that the the good thing in one sense is that a lot of people, because it's so horrible to starve yourself for for for many or most people, they just naturally...
00:29:54
Speaker
they're not so masochistic as to actually engage in it in a prolonged fashion and then regularly. So i think that's one thing that's kind of a saving grace.
00:30:06
Speaker
The problem, of course, is that the kind of people that will be attracted to fasting are kind of more health nuts, more hardcore folks. And then some shortcut seekers, of course, there that... that That often backfires, but that's beside the point. So this is another, i think, insidious thing that this sort of ah intervention attracts people that are ready to like, you know, I'll do anything to
Fasting's Popularity vs. Potential Negatives
00:30:32
Speaker
be healthier. I'll do anything to increase my longevity. I'll do anything. um
00:30:36
Speaker
that I have to do. So they're probably doing a lot of other things like organic, clean eating and no processed garbage and trying to sleep well and and exercising, all that good stuff. So they're doing a lot of healthy behaviors that they're adding fasting. So their other healthy behaviors are kind of allowing them to endure that stressor without super horrible things happening to them. But this is where I posit that a lot of those people are, it's like they might be taking five, ten steps forward with all the other healthy behaviors.
00:31:16
Speaker
But with the fasting, it's actually taking them back. They're taking steps back with the fasting. But they're taken they've taken so many steps forward that that ah setback is not as...
00:31:29
Speaker
noticeable, right? So if we were to, it would be very almost impossible to study this, but um like if you take twins, for example, never gonna happen, of course, but if you take twins and you have both of them kind of separated, like each one is separated, then one fast eats clean, super clean, like like impeccable home environment, no toxins, all that good stuff. and then the other one we do the same and only one fasts and they're eating really clean and healthy and in you know general ways. I would absolutely bet my bottom dollar that the twin that's doing all the healthy behaviors that the other is, except the fasting, with no fasting, no starvation, would actually be healthier and live longer because they're not decimating their sex hormones, the shrinking, you know, And by the way, this goes for women as well. I have to make sure you understand. If this if horrible things are happening to men's testosterone with fasting, horrible things are happening with women's hormones, and especially progesterone, when they're fasting. and A lot of women, especially when they're kind of still um menstruating, they are ah a lot their their sex hormone balance is a lot more sensitive to these kinds of stressors. so this this is I think one of the worst things right now is young people, especially of reproductive age, especially women, of course. I think this is like one of the worst things happening out there is that the algorithms are... r r
00:33:05
Speaker
are amplifying this, are pushing this to... And you can go on YouTube and and Instagram and just see all the influencers, everybody doing the fasting and the intermittent fasting. So the algorithms are pushing this in front of people. And a lot of those people are young. And here's the thing.
00:33:20
Speaker
This is not good for fertility, for both for men and for women. um And furthermore, if you're young, if you're like 25, 30, 35, which i'm I'm sure most people listening to this were kind of i probably attract slightly older folks, um but if you're of that age, like you can endure the the stress of fasting, right? And you won't feel horrible. like I have clients that have done it at 50, 60 years of age and even older. And they they just feel the horrible effects a lot more readily because you know we lose resilience in many cases as we age.
00:33:55
Speaker
And we kind of accumulate this function in the body. um So this is what I hate about this, in the insidious nature of it and the fact that it's being pushed so blankly for everybody to do. It's young people. Well, if they're young and healthy already, why do they need to freaking fast?
00:34:11
Speaker
How much more healthy can you get? You know what i mean? Like, is it worth all these negative effects? Is it worth being 1, 2, 3, 4, 5% healthier? And then at the expense of what? Because clearly starvation is is going to be detrimental to to fertility.
00:34:34
Speaker
you know That's kind of horrible that that young people, are it's being pushed on the young people. the health conscious young people that can endure this sort of nonsense. Like when you're 20 or 30, you can do 50-day fast. Most people can.
00:34:48
Speaker
They still can. But when you're 35, it starts to get harder for many. When you're 40, for even more. And then when you're 45, 50 plus, it gets harder and harder and harder. So again, this this sort of thing selects for healthier people, more health conscious people, people doing more healthy behaviors.
00:35:08
Speaker
And I believe personally, commuting for hat wearing conspiracy theorists, I believe this is why the algorithms are are pushing it so much because that is actually holding those people back from their true health potential. And again, let's say we were to do this twin study and they're both impeccably healthy in terms of their behaviors, their diet and everything, clean environment. I i am willing to, again, bet my bottom dollar that the twin that does not fast is going to do ah a lot better, going to age a lot better, and is going to live longer, bar no accidents happening, of course, than the faster, especially if that person is doing, let's say, ah like a 5, 7, 10-day fast once a quarter or like twice a year or whatever. These are very stressful things. and and i know this is kind of
00:36:02
Speaker
I will ramble a lot so I will stop after the statement because like there's so many tangents here but each one deserves its own video but this is yet another way, ah another spell is being cast on people where it's it's ancestrally consistent. Our ancestors fasted therefore we must fast but our ancestors did a lot of things that they were forced to do.
00:36:26
Speaker
they They did things out of necessity or because they were forced to do them, they had no other choice. So who is to say that they wouldn't have been healthier if they had constant supply of food that they didn't have to worry about and expend tons of energy to to find, to collect, to whatever, hunt?
00:36:43
Speaker
Who is to say they wouldn't have lived better just because they did they did a lot of other things? They um had to climb trees lot, you know? I think that was one of the leading causes of death back in the day, like falling out of a tree. So does that mean because they used to climb a lot of trees that we now have to climb a lot of trees because that's what our ancestors did? There's a lot of things, again, that they did that because they didn't have technology. They didn't have things that actually make life easier.
00:37:12
Speaker
and And I know there's a lot of aspects to technology now that are are kind of hurting our health. But there's also a lot of things that are actually helping.
00:37:23
Speaker
So it's it's a matter of kind of sifting through what's good and what what's bad. Obviously, EMS and LED lights and all this stuff is not good and electrical fields near your bed when you're asleep. All of these things are not good. However, having ah a refrigerator and and having...
00:37:40
Speaker
you know, food in there that doesn't spoil, and being able to order fresh, organic, clean food via the internet to come to your house, well, these things are are pretty damn good. And I'm pretty sure if you if you gave them the option, if they had it back in the day when we were whatever hunter-gatherers,
00:37:59
Speaker
I'm pretty sure those people will hell yeah, yeah, sign me up. Amazon Prime, sign me up. Whole Foods or a delivery once a week, sign me up. And then when they had that, it's very likely if they had that those, um I guess, beneficial things of,
00:38:20
Speaker
modern life, in many in many ways and and senses they would have actually done better because if you're fasting then you gotta have to go forage for food, don't don't you dare tell me that that's beneficial and you're gonna and your body is getting healthier. how is How is your body getting healthier if you are deprived of not just energy but also nutrients? Like you're constantly turning over and using energy and turning over nutrients and doing things in the body. How are you supposed to be getting healthier if that if you're going for like five days or seven days without those things coming into your body, those building blocks?
00:39:00
Speaker
it's like It's so silly that it's like ah you know you lose your income, you lose your job, all your resources of income, And then you start getting thrifty at home and like, oh, you're going to start getting into the the pantry and whatever we have in there. and We start eating that. And, you know, instead of buying firewood for the winter, you're going to start burning so like some old chair you don't use. You can use that. So you're getting thrifty.
00:39:25
Speaker
But... Are you going to tell me you're getting richer when you've lost your income and your life ah her quality of life is improving? That doesn't make any sense. That's the way it is with fasting. It's a degenerative process. Yes, you use ketones. Yes, you burn fat. But you're burning through a ton of lean tissue, bone, muscle, organs, joints are getting degenerated. So you're burning through that.
00:39:51
Speaker
And then because no vitamins and minerals are coming in, you are repurposing vitamins and minerals in other places, amino acids. You're taking them from less important places and you're shuttling them. You're triaging where should they go. And they're going for hypercritical things, you know, the lungs breathing, the brain, the nervous system, the heart, of course, the kidneys, etc., etc.
Alternatives to Fasting for Health Improvement
00:40:17
Speaker
So it's an absolute fairy tale that we're rejuvenating when we fast. We're degenerating. Now, the pro the ah this is alluding to a longer video on the topic, but the reason so many people benefit from fasting, one of the main reasons is their diet is so trash, unfortunately, so many people, is that taking a break from this very inflammatory diet is beneficial.
00:40:47
Speaker
Then the other reason is also a lot of people have gut issues because of you know glyphosate, terrible diet. excuse me terrible diet Again, um of course, stress is really detrimental to to gut function and we are so stressed as a society. um So those people...
00:41:09
Speaker
with the gut issues, especially if their diet is inflaming them and they and they don't know it, well, taking a break from that can also make you feel better. the My sort of um position, though, is with most people,
00:41:27
Speaker
that have those issues, there's just so many other things that we could do before we starve the people. It's such a blunt tool. It's such a um heavy-handed approach. Just remove everything from the diet. What about...
00:41:45
Speaker
What about removing the inflammatory things? What about improving the diet? What about getting the gut working better? We can do all of those things and I've done that with clients where we don't starve the person. In fact, we are improving and increasing the nutrient density of the diet whilst removing inflammatory things and optimizing and improving gut function. It is possible. It's just a matter of...
00:42:10
Speaker
of
00:42:12
Speaker
being ready to to kind of have a more nuanced approach because it's just so easy to just stop eating. You know, if it was that easy, why don't we just all stop eating today, go go lie on the couch for a week and then we'll all be younger and healthier and rejuvenated.
00:42:28
Speaker
Why don't we all just do that? Because it's a pipe dream, it's a fantasy, it's a fairy tale. Being alive on earth in this existence the way it's designed is hard work. Finding food, especially in today's environment, is hard. Clean food is even harder.
00:42:48
Speaker
Working, you know, earning money to buy food all of it's hard. So being, staying healthy, staying alive, it takes a lot of effort. You have to eat at least once, twice a day, maybe more. You have to, you know, exert your body.
00:43:03
Speaker
It's not easy. And a lot of people are looking for the easy easy way out. And unfortunately, that backfires. Because there is no easy way. This is this is a like Earth, right? Unfortunately, or fortunate whatever, however you look at it. This is...
00:43:21
Speaker
This is where the work gets done, you know, in between whatever other states our consciousness is. So anyway, don't want to get too philosophical now. I will continue developing this narrative as I'm kind of fleshing out the book over the next few months. I hope you find this um i hope you find this perspective interesting because, again, um everywhere I look, it's all rainbows, unicorns, and autophagy when it comes to fasting.
00:43:51
Speaker
And that, if there's no opposing view, it it kind of becomes an echo chamber or a cult if there if there's no discourse allowed to to be done around this topic. So I'm hoping to just kind of stimulate some conversation. And unfortunately, a lot of a lot of people that actually do, like let's say email me back or when I send emails out to my list and stuff, a lot of the people that do do get back to me, sometimes they're like yeah you know what? i actually agree with this. I felt horrible doing it. And that's why i don't want to do it. So I kind of agree with you. But a lot of the time it's like just like really stressed sounding people that are like, how dare you? Jesus fasted for 40 days. It's in all the religions and stuff. so So it's just really very triggering for a lot of people.
00:44:38
Speaker
um because it almost kind of becomes a lot of this nutritional stuff and health stuff, it kind of becomes, we've become religious about it, whether it's veganism, carnivore, keto, fasting, you know whatever the case may be, biohacking.
00:44:52
Speaker
So I think anytime something is becoming a belief, we have to we we have to just be careful that it doesn't become an echo chamber because that's how how horrible things happen you know over our history when we just are hyper fixated this is the way things are this is the right way to do things so I think that's important to kind of just be open-minded because at the end of the day at the end of the day um
00:45:24
Speaker
we have evidence in today's world, we have evidence of you know French ladies living through like 115, 120, where they they didn't fast, right?
00:45:37
Speaker
They smoked cigarettes, they drank wine or whatever, they ate chocolate every day, they had sugar. so we have evidence for those women with literally smoking like half a pack a day or whatever, cigarettes. So we have evidence that people can live to 100 plus, 110 plus like that.
00:45:58
Speaker
But I don't think we have evidence for like chronic fasting. extending life. i i I don't see it. I'm not seeing any long-term studies being published. I'm not doing many i'm not seeing many researchers doing follow-up after the the fasting interventions.
00:46:19
Speaker
right That's a huge problem. We need at least three months, a year, maybe three three months, six months, a year, and then two years, and then five years. That's the kind of research that we need to do, and we need a much more diverse set of biomarkers because if we just focus on the cardio metabolic markers that's such BS. We need to be looking at stress hormones, thyroid hormones, we need to be looking at inflammatory markers, things like you know metabolic rate, ah you know oxygen consumption, all these kinds of things. We need to be looking at all of these things and then fat mass, lean mass, how do they change in the follow-up period because It's very easy in a study for like three days, five days, eight days, even a month, it's very easy to to get a result that you want that's positive if you're just looking for specific markers. For example, I can like i could potentially design some studies where people do the the lines of coke of a dirty toilet seat and a Jagermeister diet
00:47:22
Speaker
or eating you know ah ah eating dirt every day or or or a shot of whiskey every night before bed. like You could design a ton of studies or like one where you get punched in the stomach every day. And if you look at ah ah markers, you kind of cherry pick the markers, you could actually, after that study, you could actually report a positive result. right But if you look at a ah swath of markers, including things like nutrient status. Like I've not seen nutrient status markers in these studies.
00:47:56
Speaker
We've not seen often oxidative stress markers. You know, inflammatory markers are rare, never mind having actually follow-up. So if we do a lot more research with a lot more markers, we could probably see a lot more problems happening with fasting. Until then, the best we can do is piece together from a bunch of different studies that some looked at, you know,
00:48:19
Speaker
thyroid stuff, sex hormones, loss of lean mass, lowering and metabolism. So we have to like look at a bunch of different studies and then piece together the negative effects because there is many.
Fasting in Mainstream Health and Public Perception
00:48:32
Speaker
It's just they're not looking for them because contrary to what a lot of people think is, oh yeah, big pharma, they don't want fasting to become mainstream because it would put them out of a job. No, all of these studies, as you saw here in the previous one, they're always...
00:48:47
Speaker
ending things positively even when clearly the results are not good or there's bad aspects to the to the to the intervention or negative aspects to the intervention. So, and then, you know, and NIH are funding some of these studies.
00:49:01
Speaker
So, I don't think, they are trying to popularize it more and to be honest with you, like I really got super heavy into health at around 2018. It was already huge, fasting. And it's only gotten bigger. It's mainstream. I have um ah have a ah lady here in Portugal, which keep in mind, a lot of stuff, a lot of recommendations and and and and things that doctors do start in the USA and then they trickle out to the rest of the world. So the fact that i so I heard from a lady I was working with that her granddaughter, 16 years old, clearly hypothyroid and and overweight as well, um
00:49:46
Speaker
She went to the doctor at 16 years old and this guy was like, oh, you should try intermittent fasting. So if doctors are already recommending intermittent fasting here in Europe, in in Portugal, you know it's mainstream if doctors are recommending it.
00:50:04
Speaker
its Fasting is mainstream. It's huge. The biggest biggest health influencers, the biggest names that are doctors in the health space, they are all, all of them basically, all of them basically, with a few exceptions that I can think of, very few exceptions.
00:50:25
Speaker
All of them have been talking about fasting, this fasting, that autophagy, etc. However, over the last couple of years, and I've actually been collecting videos, I might do a little ah montage of of these famous doctors and such, talking about how they changed their mind about skipping breakfast. They changed their mind about every other day fasting, They changed their mind about five days eating, two days fasting.
00:50:55
Speaker
And they also changed their mind about doing prolonged fasting regularly. Yeah, including Peter Thiel, Walter Longo, whom um many people have heard of, um Rhonda Patrick, she stopped skipping breakfast.
00:51:14
Speaker
they are a lot of these people backpedaling. A lot of them are. The problem is they're not going to announce it because they're going to look like dum-dums. Nobody wants to look like a dum-dum.
00:51:26
Speaker
you know That's one of the worst one of the worst things to have, the especially if a million or two million subscribers and followers. Imagine you tell them, guy you guys, remember i was studying for like five years to starve yourself intermittently?
00:51:38
Speaker
Well, I don't do that anymore. Or Peter Thia, the disgraced doctor that's a friend of jeff Jeffrey e Epstein. He was fasting seven days every three months, so seven to ten days, and then he'd do a three-day fast every month.
00:51:56
Speaker
So he was every month he was either doing a three-day fast or then every quarter he would do a seven-day fast. He stopped doing that because he lost like 15 pounds of lean mass and ah he gained fat mass.
00:52:09
Speaker
So he stopped doing that. He's huge. He still has a million followers on YouTube and so on. So he stopped. But he didn't really announce it. you know he He talked about it in his book. He's talked about it on on on YouTube here and there. But he never said, hey, guys, by the way, the the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of you that are fasting because I was blowing the horn about it for years, I don't do that anymore. People like seem to not want to do that because it's not going to make you more popular. It's just going to cause a lot of backlash, and a lot of pissed off people commenting on your videos and and on your posts and stuff. and sending you angry emails.
Conclusion: Promoting Healthy Habits
00:52:49
Speaker
So if you didn't get the memo yet, I'm trying to, I'm doing my best here two warn you because a lot more people in the future are going especially as they get older, because some of these guys and gals are pretty young still, in their 30s, you know, ah even early 40s, and doing so they're doing so many healthy things that, of course, of course, it's...
00:53:13
Speaker
they're They're keeping it together. you know you're You're not taking a a sick, ah deficient in nutrients, stressed out person and fasting. Those people are healthy as their work, so they do a lot of stuff around health.
00:53:27
Speaker
um But people will change their minds as they get older. They're going to see what they could do when they were 30 or 40 even. They can't do that when they're 50. They can't do that when they're 60.
00:53:38
Speaker
So why not... stop doing things that are stressful to the body and just kind of do things that are nourishing, replenishing and lowering stress. That's what we do with the Live Longer Formula program. Make sure you go to livelongerformula.com you will be able to get my free masterclass, talk about a bunch of other stuff you may be doing that may not be so good. And then if you if you sign up to that, you just dig around, you'll be able to book a call with me to do a free metabolic function assessment and I can help you get some clarity around your health and explain how the program that I offer can help you out with you know resolving health challenges without stressful things like keto and fasting and nonsense like that.
00:54:23
Speaker
And, you know, help you resolve your health challenges and ideally not just achieve your health goals but exceed your health goals, right? Because if you learn a few important pillars of health, a few fundamentals, and you apply them consistently for life, that is the best thing you can do for your health. And I can teach you that if you are in that position to, to you know,
00:54:48
Speaker
to do that so check that out thanks for watching or listening and i will see you on the next episode christian jordanoff out