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Medical effects / Immune System - Why not a medical citation made ?

The piece of text quotes a Telegraph article. This can't be any more acceptable than quoting opinion. Why isn't the research or a paper quoted here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting#Immune_system

There is very little medical reporting positive or negative here. The majority is religious information

It is promarily a bodily, physical thing, there surely ought go be medical reports, uses, pros and cons, based on real understanding. I find it a little concerning that the religious aspects are so favoured when they are one things we know we can not prove. Whereas medicine has everything we know really works and is not mentioned very much relatively or generally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting#Immune_system

Eating breakfast was associated with significantly lower CHD risk in a cohort of male health professionals.

A medical citation for the above breakfast-eating article is

Cahill et al.

Prospective Study of Breakfast Eating and Incident Coronary Heart Disease in a Cohort of Male US Health Professionals

Circulation. 2013; 128: 337-343

doi: 10.1161/​CIRCULATIONAHA.113.001474

Full free text

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.full

http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/128/4/337.short?rss=1

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdnctx (talk • contribs) 17:12, 1 March 2014

Definitions badly needed

An article that talks about fasting but doesn't differentiate between the various types is misleading and confusing. For instance, one part here says that there are no health benefits to prolonged fasting, yet elsewhere some benefits are described. But what's a prolonged fast? What's an intermitted fast? This makes all the difference so I propose either: A) A section with clear definitions that are used consistently throughout or B) Splitting the article up so that the different types of fasts are kept in separate sections --Robeswoven (talk) 09:36, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Fasting detox as quackery?

I'm disappointed to see 2 fairly unreliable sources supporting the fact that fasting as a "detox" is quackery. There are plenty of well researched and peer reviewed articles suggesting that fasting actually can help with detoxifying the body via autophagy. Some examples follow:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30172870 https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/357765 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5224452/

I'm challenging this section for removal

212.129.86.129 (talk) 17:24, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

What "unreliable sources". The whole idea of detox is nonsense. No reliable source would support it. Alexbrn (talk) 17:28, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

What about the 3 that I listed? 212.129.78.124 (talk) 03:22, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

If you have a proposal for an edit, give text and source. Alexbrn (talk) 04:48, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

My proposal would not be to add more text, but to simply remove that section, for two reasons.

Firstly, the referenced sources both use ad hominem towards a faceless "beauty world" and give no real reason that fasting is not good other than it being "nonsense". The only point the first source gave against fasting was: "rapid weight loss can occur, but this weight loss is largely water and glycogen". This is simply not true and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how the human body works, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4910284/ and countless other studies. The second source listed has largely the same problems.

Secondly, I wouldn't classify fasting as alternative medicine at all so any attempt to write about fasting in that manner would be forced. Maybe there can be a section called "Modern research" or something, which talks about fasting and autophagy, which was only fully described in about 2016 when Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel prize in Medicine for his work on it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6257056/ Maybe this is the "detox" that the quacks you mention were talking about? Recently, there has been evidence that fasting can have great physiological benefits, both for diseases such as diabetes (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1218856) and obesity (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/921419), and there are plenty of anecdotal reports of improved health, mood and general quality of life.212.129.79.145 (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Additionally, the 2 sources I am talking about specifically are https://www.bda.uk.com/foodfacts/detoxdiets.pdf and https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fashionable-toxins/ . The rest of the section after the first paragraph cites a lot of people from a really early period in medicine (They seem to all be from about 1870??). I would say this is pretty outdated to say the least. And every other source is some kind of article bashing quackery rather than being a scientific study showing some kind of result that fasting is not beneficial to health. 212.129.79.145 (talk) 22:02, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Those are good sources. If you have a reliable "scientific study", then what exactly is it? Alexbrn (talk) 05:57, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Well I've given quite a few reasons why they're not good sources, and you have given no reasons other than "they are good". I've also given 7 medical studies from the most reliable medical source there is. Did you read my reply re: the 2 reasons I give for the section to be removed? What more do I need?212.129.77.77 (talk) 13:35, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find a study saying that fasting is harmful, because it's not, but it's quite easy to find dozens if not hundreds showing health benefits from all different angles. What's your big problem with fasting? Do you think it's harmful? Do you think it has no effect on the body? It's very hard to come to those conclusions when you see so many modern studies and meta analyses come to the very opposite conclusion. It's hard to debate this if you just shut down my arguments without any reason or argument.212.129.77.77 (talk) 13:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

The BDA passes WP:MEDRS and sciencebasedmedicine.org is a useful source per WP:PARITY (see also WP:RSP). I clicked on your first "study" and it was a crank journal. I stopped after that. Please read and absorb WP:MEDRS and WP:FRINGE to discover how Wikipedia treats this topic. Alexbrn (talk) 14:11, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

212.129.77.77 as Alexbrn has noted you need to read up on Wikipedia rules in regard to health claims or medical literature. Small sample primary papers are not acceptable for medical claims. You need reliable secondary sources such as a systematic review published in a decent peer-reviewed journal if you want the said content to be included on Wikipedia. You have failed this. This is a small primary study [1] published in an alternative medicine journal. Not reliable. Your other source [2] is not on prolonged fasting. This article is not about intermittent fasting. Pro-longed fasting is not recommended outside of medical supervision. People have died trying it. And the people that pioneered fasting like Hereward Carrington or Arnold Ehret were well known quacks of the day. That content is relevant to the article, yes I did add it.

There is not any reliable references that support pro-longed fasting, you are mistaken if you claim otherwise. You seem to be confusing intermittent fasting with pro-longed fasting. Medical authorities have argued against fasting but they are investigating the effects of intermittent fasting which appears to be less dangerous. Your statement "it's quite easy to find dozens if not hundreds showing health benefits from all different angles", is incorrect. Your other studies are not reliable. This [3] is a small study on mice from 1975. It has nothing to do with diabetes in humans. The last study you cite was from a reliable journal from 1977, but it is a small primary study [4]. Per WP:MEDRS "Per the policies of neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiability, Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, independent, published secondary or tertiary sources. You haven't shown us a single reliable scientific reference. Show us some reliable secondary or tertiary sources and you may have a case. Until then your edits will not make it on the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 14:19, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Firstly, my main point is that the current text is poorly sourced, outdated and doesn't show the full picture. Nobody has made any claims against my points here. Additionally, I'm not sure where you're getting that people have died on prolonged fasts? But even if people have, I am not advocating medically unsupervised fasting, I am simply contesting the information already there.

Rat studies are done because of possible implications on humans, but fair that it cannot be accepted even though it's an interesting finding Maybe I did inadvertently including a study on IF. It's hard to filter them out. What about this 2015 trial on prolonged Buchinger fasting 1422 patients in a fasting centre in Germany? [5]. It's very hard to get 0kcal past an ethics board so this is the closest we have.

Furthermore there are some sources I've previously listed that I think are valid: [6] (Lit review concluding "both fasting and CR have a role in the upregulation of autophagy, the evidence overwhelmingly suggesting that autophagy is induced in a wide variety of tissues and organs in response to food deprivation.") [7] (another lit review) [8] another mouse study sure, but interesting prelim findings nonetheless. Finally what's the problem with [9]? 207 patients with a 7.3 year follow up is too small?

Most of all is the large scale German study I posted. Any major issues with that?212.129.77.77 (talk) 15:28, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Another thing you say is that "the people that pioneered fasting like Hereward Carrington or Arnold Ehret were well known quacks of the day." This is irrelevant since these are essentially random people from the 1800s, and fasting has been practiced by humans for as long as we know. (i.e. ramadan). I don't see what 150 year old American quacks have to do with fasting at all.212.129.77.77 (talk) 15:34, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I think we need to be clear, the section in question we are discussing on this article is on alternative medicine (fasting) which is quackery. It was pioneered in the late 19th century (and early 20th century) by Arnold Ehret, Hereward Carrington, Edward H. Dewey, Bernarr Macfadden, Frank McCoy, Edward Earle Purinton, Upton Sinclair and Wallace Wattles. We have a good source that documents the history of this. Before this, there was no books published on prolong-fasting or people making pseudoscientific claims about it, it was a religious practice. These people promoted it as some sort of science, they were mistaken. The medical community does not recommend pro-longed fasting. Do you think 20-30 days fasts are safe? Such a practice has been deemed quackery. This source that you cite [10] is another on mice. I do not think it is relevant to the article. The other 1977 study on mice is a primary source so not reliable. You also link to a source that discusses autophagy. It is not relevant to the section in discussion. As for the one year observational study you cite, this was on periodic fasting (intermittent fasting), if you want to add that then head over to the intermittent fasting article. But I doubt it would be included per what we have told you, per WP:MEDRS. Psychologist Guy (talk) 16:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Again, just because you list some crazy people from the late 1800s doesn't mean fasting doesn't have any merit, especially since there has been modern research on the topic. I really don't see what bearing that has on anything, just because someone believes in something ridiculous like having psychic powers or whatever doesn't mean that every single thing they ever said was rubbish. This is a logical fallacy. I think 20-30 day fasts can indeed be safe, but I don't think anyone should really do a >7 day fast unsupervised. This is simply my opinion, and I don't think there should be any Wikipedia article promoting even a 1 day fast unsupervised, and again, this is not my intention. My intention is to remove the misleading information essentially stating that fasting is stupid. It's certainly not and holds great promise in helping with the obesity and diabetes epidemic we are facing.

See Angus Barbieri's fast, he lasted 382 days, so yes I would say it's pretty obvious that a 20-30 day fast would be safe _for him_ [11]. (As a side note, do you think he lost mostly water weight? :). As well, see [12]. They went some time without food and none were likely to be overweight at the start since it was 1981 in Ireland. I'm not saying a 20 day fast is good for normal weight or underweight people, but the human body can go quite some time without food.

Why isn't a study on autophagy relevant? It's a useful mechanism which is induced by fasting. Autophagy I suppose can be used in place of the word "detox" (A term which I do not like simply because it is vague and unscientific). I do indeed think autophagy belongs in a fasting article.

Finally, which one year observational study are you talking about? This one [13] ? This is not intermittent fasting, but extreme calorie restriction done to have essentially the same effect as fasting. Intermittent fasting typically has a feeding window where one can eat _ad libitum_, this offers only some soup and was carried out to study the effects of a prolonged fast rather than intermittent fasting. i.e. the closest to a large scale fasting study we could possibly find.

Here's another large scale one too on obesity (JAMA, 1977 [14]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.129.75.102 (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, we are not going to remove reliable content just because you do not like it. The history of fasting is associated with quackery, that is a fact according to reliable sources. The year observational study you cite is still a primary source, but it is not about pro-longed fasting. Have a read of the paper, it is periodic fasting over a year. There is a difference between fasting and intermittent fasting but you fail to understand this. The patients were consuming food and fluids in a periodic manner. In alternative medicine i.e. detox quackery or prolonged fasting no foods are consumed at all (in most cases), usually only limited fluid intake and these fasts are not broken up, they are dangerous and not done in a periodic way. It is unlikely for a person to survive 30 days without water or any fluids at all. As for Angus Barbieri's fast, the man was clinically obese and he died at the age of 50, his article says he was consuming vitamins, coffee and other fluids. You are coming on here just citing a mixture of anything you can find on Google. There is no evidence pro-longed fasting is a scientific breakthrough or has loads of evidence to support it, you are mistaken. You have not given us one reliable source. The last study you cite is another primary source. This page is about improvements for the article. You have not suggested anything reliable, so it is unlikely anything you say here will end up on the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:01, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Check the health effects section on the article. You may be confusing that section with alternative medicine fasting (detox, prolonged fasting etc). Autophagy may be relevant to that section, but not in alternative medicine. It is incorrect and obviously original research to claim autophagy and detoxification mean the same thing. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:10, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

You're wrong. Merry Christmas you prick. I hope you get diabetes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8085:123F:1780:9D29:C90E:BDF:B633 (talk) 20:20, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 January 2021 and 21 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sharpd153.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:46, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Separate page for Religious views section

The section is quite lengthy and overshadows any other context for fasting. Currently there are 13 sub sections in Religious views, with another 11 within Christianity and 9 in Islam. The religious views section should be limited to an overview, on the fasting page, the same as the 'political application' section. The amount of edits for religious views surpasses any other subject in the article with it's own page like length. Fasting as a general concept is on the rise societally and in popularity, and it can be a secular activity. As noted in the banner for 'health effects' sub section, there is information missing, with many new studies coming out in the last 3 years.

This was also mentioned in a previous section in the talk page archive called "Article is too long. Carve out new separate article on fasting in various religions".

I agree with you. Splitting the article into one that focuses on the health reasons for fasting and the ideological/religious reasons for fasting would be an improvement. Is there a better term than 'religious fasting.'? Some people fast for ideological or political reasons, or to protest imprisonment, or in solidarity with others. Hunger strikes, etc. There are also the hunger artists, who fast as a means of entertainment.sbelknap (talk) 06:56, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Title Fasting in religion can be used instead Crashed greek (talk) 09:33, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I think User:sbelknap makes a good point that there is more than religious and medical fasting. There are other ideological types of fasting. For that reason I do not think we should have Fasting (medical) and Fasting (religion) but rather that this fasting article should be the head topic, just called Fasting as it is, but that subjects that require fuller treatment become child articles, in which case Fasting (religion) or Fasting in religion would be the natural split. A section is maintained here that says something like “fasting is often suggested, encouraged or mandated in religions.” and a link to the article. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:49, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think this split would improve things and may make things worse. Currently the "religious fasting" content is here, and in Intermittent fasting, and in Dry fasting and in the religion-specific articles Fasting in Jainism and Fasting in Islam and Fasting in Buddhism ... at least. What I'd like to see is a proposal that accounts for all of this, rather than creating yet another place where this stuff is scattered. Alexbrn (talk) 11:37, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  I definitely agree with the goal of reducing unnecessary repetition. So that means the status quo is kind of right - but needs some tweaking.

  We have links here to fasting in Buddhism, but don' even mention Jainism or Islam. So we actually should consider making this the parent article for all of these (but don't stone me now. Hear me out ;) ). Firstly we reduce what we say about each on this page. We don't need to say much more than what is in the lead of the child articles (one paragraph in the ones I looked at) and could get away with less. We could just have a general article about fasting being important in many religions. Also, Christianity is a missing link. Our 'see also' for Christianity are not fasting articles. There either needs to be a fasting in Christianity article, or else we have to list all the different Christianity sub articles and we can leave out dietary rules and vegetarianism. They may be related but they are not fasting articles. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  • "There either needs to be a fasting in Christianity article" But are there sources for such a minor aspect of Christianity? Dimadick (talk) 19:36, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

    Catholicism is Christianity too, so it is not minor. But then there is a catholicism article that you don't want to duplicate... so hmm. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:06, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Proposed merge of Water fasting into Fasting

Article is currently a stub and the content is covered already in the other article. (t · c) buidhe 09:11, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support Merge. There is insufficient information to make a water fasting article viable, and the matter can be fully covered in a section on this page. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:22, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

• Support Merge. If anything there should be an article on dry-fasting, not water fasting. Water fasting is the "default" if you will, and should not have a separate page. Ariel. (talk) 06:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Contraindications

Needs contraindications section. Fasting isn't safe for everyone, including (but not limited to) people with eating disorders, people who are malnourished, etc. 172.58.35.37 (talk) 19:23, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Fasting

i need knows anything about fasting 2C0F:F5C0:520:64CE:F647:E063:EC73:7EDF (talk) 12:41, 24 March 2023 (UTC)