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Does Fasting Cause Muscle Loss?

The effects of intermittent fasting, daily calorie restriction, and other forms of eating restriction on building muscle mass: a complete review of the current science.

Dr. Jason Fung
Published in
11 min readNov 22, 2018

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Involuntary periodic starvation — and its voluntary counterpart, fasting — have been part of human nature since the beginning of time. Until relatively recently, food was not always available. Early humans needed to store food energy as body fat to survive the hard times. If we did not have an efficient storage and retrieval method of food energy, we would have died long ago.

After food became more available, most human cultures and religions prescribed voluntary periods of fasting. For example, Jesus was said to have fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and many subsequent followers have undertaken this themselves without significant health damage. Many Muslims fast during the holy month of Ramadan, and also regularly fast twice a week during the rest of the year. Fasting was considered a cleansing procedure, without any connotation of harmful muscle burning.

The repeated feeding-fasting cycles did not seem to have any detrimental effect on muscle mass. Descriptions of traditional societies, such as the Native Americans, Inuit, or tribesmen in Africa, suggest they…

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Better Humans
Better Humans

Published in Better Humans

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Dr. Jason Fung
Dr. Jason Fung

Written by Dr. Jason Fung

Nephrologist. New York Times best selling author. Interest in type 2 diabetes reversal and intermittent fasting. Founder www.TheFastingMethod.com.

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