Are slimming tea products unethical?

 

It seems strange asking and answering this question; all of this was sorted out and overdone years ago, and has went quiet since.  A new producer brings it all up again.

I'll start with the short answer, or at least my take:  yes, slimming tea products are unethical.  

At least in the most common form they occur in.  Exceptions are possible; that's a lot of what I'm discussing here.

The main theme is using "real tea," or just other herbal ingredients, to serve as a laxative and diuretic, to cause people to lose water weight and speed up bowel movement processing.  Both will cause a temporary weight loss effect, but neither is "slimming" in the sense of helping someone lose body fat, the main intended meaning.  Both are relatively unhealthy, since maintaining normal digestion and appropriate hydration level is more optimum, and adjusting and disrupting these is less healthy.

What about a stimulant effect; couldn't that help with weight loss?  Yes, to a limited extent.  Caffeine already is a stimulant, present in every kind of "real tea," camellia sinensis based versions, and adding more of that, or that plus some other stimulant, is probably not a good idea.  It doesn't really work to speed up metabolism to lose weight anyway; it's far superior to adjust diet inputs, to ingest less calories.

I can easily enough explain why that is.  I run a good bit, 10 km / 6.4 miles per outing, three times a week (typically), for a total of 20 miles or 30 km per week.  According to a tracking app that burns about 600 calories per outing, towards 2000 per week; that's a good start.  But it's not hard at all to eat an extra 600 calories per day, and certainly not 300, working back to a weekly average.  Revving up metabolism an equivalent amount through stimulants lands on the same result, that it's not helpful unless daily dietary intake and expenditure balance.  

If medium-high exercise for three hours a week "only" burns up an additional 2000 calories, or about that, stacking an extra stimulant on top of ingesting caffeine would need to make a significant difference--and have potentially significant negative side effects--to achieve the same outcome.  Then eating or otherwise consuming an extra 300 calories per day would be easy; it's not that much.  Two cans of Coke is close to that (278); you could just drink that input daily.

So as I see it people creating, marketing, and selling "slimming tea" versions are more or less selling snake oil.  At best the products wouldn't do much, and at worst laxative and diuretic effect or stimulant input would be quite negative.  

Caffeine is already a diuretic too, beyond being a stimulant, so ordinary tea already covers that.  People's experience of side effects vary, so not everyone would agree with that, and it requires a significant daily dose to cause that effect (water loss), but a daily recommended limit of 400 mg of caffeine will cause water loss for most people.  Taking even more diuretic is not a good idea; temporarily losing water weight isn't helpful.

Some people might feel that they retain too much water, and feel bloated, so it would be good for them.  An easy way to offset this is to limit intake of compounds that cause increased water retention, particularly salt (sodium).  Or drinking more tea could help, and adding a bit more caffeine, which is a bit counter-intuitive, since that's ingesting more water as well.  Tea is said to contain between 25 and 40 mg of caffeine per a standard 8 ounce cup (250 ml, more or less), so brewed a bit strong it might take 10 cups to ingest that standard daily limit of 400 mg, the same as in four cups of coffee (on average).  80 ounces of tea is well over 2 quarts / liters; depending on the diuretic effect experienced someone might not need to add more water to compensate, but given how it can speed up water loss some people would.

I'm not claiming that maxing out caffeine intake is definitely a good idea, to speed up metabolism and get diuretic effect to really kick in.  I typically drink about 8 grams worth of tea a day, intentionally keeping that moderate, which I expect might amount to around 240 mg total (maybe less), down to 220 or less since extraction rate isn't 100%.  Long term effects are impossible to predict, so to me practicing moderation makes sense, related to essentially everything we consume.

Back to the specific starting point, the ethics issue.

A new slimming tea product

It's this product, last discussed by the developers in this tea group post:

Oddly that post is about discussing potential product names, and they've already set up the vending page with the product name and some marketing content, so that seems odd, and perhaps not completely genuine.

What is it they're discussing, or selling?  That's not clear yet.  They've implied it's based on pu'er tea, but there are no product details out yet.  Maybe that plus a diuretic and laxative, the most conventional earlier form.  Maybe something else.  It seems unlikely that they might incorporate a formerly unknown herbal input that really helps with weight loss, but I suppose it's not inconceivable.

  

About that, I wrote not so long ago about how brewing ground up papaya seeds extracts a compound that suppresses fat digestion.  That's not so far off the theme of an earlier supplement that did the same, which was embraced and then universally rejected for changing the consistency of the subject's stool in a negative way, making it loose and oily.  That's covered in the Mayo Clinic's summary of Orlistat functions, benefits, and side effects.  This problem stands out:

These side effects include:

Stomach pain or upset stomach

Oily discharge from the anus...

Yeah, no.  

For sure other compounds and herbs out there support weight loss, but there is no magic fix, or it would already be on the market.  Interfering with digestion is an interesting twist, seemingly more promising than stimulant effect, if an input version didn't have such problematic side effects.  Hunger suppression, the effect underpinning the latest Ozempic / Semaglutide craze, is also promising.

Since we can't evaluate or critique the weight loss effect or mechanism of their product, which may or may not exist in a final form yet, let's at least consider something seemingly similar, a pu'er based weight loss support product that adds herbs to support that function, Purasana Pu'er Tea Fat Burner.

Ingredients:  Pu-erh tea (Camellia sinensis), peppermint (Mentha piperata), hibiscus flower (Hibiscus sabdariffa), goldenrod (Solidago virgaurea), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

They claim that goldenrod and rosemary are the "effective ingredients," in that sales page content, or sort of just imply that.  If rosemary made a lot of difference for weight loss people would already be making tea from that.  I have before, many times; it's pleasant.  I didn't lose weight drinking it.

According to this reference goldenrod, which can refer to differing plant types, is a set of flowering plants used as an herb tea / tisane in early US colonial times.  Wikipedia mentions this background and these uses:

Traditional medicine

Solidago virgaurea is used in a traditional kidney tonic by practitioners of herbal medicine to counter inflammation and irritation caused by bacterial infections or kidney stones.[43][44] Goldenrod is also used in some formulas for cleansing of the kidney or bladder during a healing fast, in conjunction with potassium broth and specific juices.[44] Some Native American cultures traditionally chew the leaves to relieve sore throats, and the roots to relieve toothaches.[28]

Medicinal exploration

In various assessments by the European Medicines Agency with respect to Solidago virgaurea, non-clinical data shows diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, analgesic and spasmolytic, antibacterial, antifungal, anticancer and immunomodulatory activity...

So it could be quite helpful in different uses, but is probably being utilized here as a diuretic.  Note that weight loss is not included in this substantial list of potential benefits.  Maybe another reference can add to that, like this Mount Sinai hospital database record:

Medicinal Uses and Indications

Goldenrod may act as a diuretic, meaning it flushes water from the body by increasing urine output. It may also reduce inflammation. However, it has not really been studied in humans.

Goldenrod is sometimes suggested for the following conditions:

Arthritis and gout

Allergies

Colds and flu

Inflammation of the bladder or urinary tract

Kidney stones

Eczema (applied to the skin)

Minor wounds (applied to the skin)

In that first Wikipedia citation they stated that "non-clinical data shows diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant..." (properties / benefits), aligning these two inputs.  It's probably good for you, but that second source warns against taking it with any other compounds that have a diuretic effect, since it has such a strong related effect itself.

Diuretics (water pills): Goldenrod may make diuretics stronger, raising the risk of dehydration.

...Other drugs: Due to its diuretic action, goldenrod may interact with any medication that is processed through the kidneys and urine.

So Purasana Puerh Tea Fat Burner seems unlikely to actually help with burning fat, since pu'er and those other common herbs don't support that (most likely, to a significant degree), but it will cause water weight loss.

But first let's back up a bit; maybe rosemary really can support weight loss, and I'm just unaware of that.  I had just set that aside as clearly absurd, but let's check, here:  Therapeutic effects of rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) and its active constituents on nervous system disorders

Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) is an evergreen bushy shrub which grows along the Mediterranean Sea, and sub-Himalayan areas. In folk medicine, it has been used as an antispasmodic, mild analgesic, to cure intercostal neuralgia, headaches, migraine, insomnia emotional upset, and depression. Different investigations have highlighted rosemary neuropharmacological properties as their main topics. 

Rosemary has significant antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-apoptotic, anti-tumorigenic, antinociceptive, and neuroprotective properties. Furthermore, it shows important clinical effects on mood, learning, memory, pain, anxiety, and sleep. The aim of the current work is to review the potential neuropharmacological effects of different rosemary extracts and its active constituents on nervous system disorders, their relevant mechanisms and its preclinical application to recall the therapeutic potential of this herb and more directions of future research projects...

The focus of the following research review isn't on all potential health benefits, but this summary and the following outline of context doesn't list weight loss as any traditionally observed potential benefit:

Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Labiatae) has been used in folk medicine to alleviate several diseases including headache, dysmenorrhea, stomachache, epilepsy, rheumatic pain, spasms, nervous agitation, improvement of memory, hysteria, depression, as well as physical and mental fatigue (5, 6)... . 

Recently, noticeable scientific interest is focused on the beneficial therapeutic properties of different kinds of rosemary extracts and its main constituents, such as carnosic acid, carnosol, rosmarinic acid, etc. A large number of studies either on animal models or cultured cells indicate the wide range medicinal properties of rosemary and its compounds such as anti-inflammatory (8, 9), anti-oxidant (10), antinociceptive (11), neuroprotective (12), antidepressant, anti-hysteric, ameliorative of memory and mental fatigue (13-15) (Figure 1)...

Why was it added to a weight loss support product then?  Who knows, but it sounds positive enough, related to so many other effects.  Maybe it helps prevent the pu'er from wrecking your stomach.  That only makes sense if it's sheng pu'er, since shou is the least impactful type of tea, and one other point that comes up in a later source indicates shou might be a better match for this kind of product.

That's a dozen or so very positive effects, from these two herbs.  Would you really recognize all these benefits?  Probably not, based on minute dosage inputs of these and pu'er along with two other herbs.  If the diuretic effect of goldenrod is strong enough that plus caffeine may have an impact.

Back to ethics

Is it really unethical to sell these products based on health claims that seem dubious at best?  I think so, but it's a judgement call.

Drinking only pu'er, without any herbs, could support weight loss, if someone was replacing drinking soda, but that's not part of any "slimming tea" product claims.  Water works for that.

What if there was more to it?  What if they, the two younger American-Chinese business founders, were in on some sort of specialized knowledge?  That is part of the claim, outlined in this earlier link:

Hey Pu'er Tea Club members,

I’m Erik, and together with my sister Angela, we’re embarking on a fascinating journey inspired by our family's deep-rooted connection to tea.

Growing up, our family's move from China to the U.S. greatly influenced our perspective on tea. It became more than a beverage; it was a bridge between cultures and eras. Our dad has spent years researching the health aspects of tea, particularly focusing on a compound in Pu'er tea known as theabrownin. His findings even made their way into the Nature Journal, an awesome achievement!

This sparked in us a desire to explore how we could blend our love for traditional Pu'er tea with modern health concepts. While we're in the early stages of conceptualizing a venture around this idea, our primary goal is to learn and grow within this space...

So could they be identifying a health benefit from a known compound, theabrownin, present in high levels in some pu'er (mostly shou, it seems), and then creating a product around that?  Maybe, but probably not, since if that's all that is happening someone could just drink the pu'er, any similar range version.  

As a related aside, it's not uncommon for research in some countries to be sponsored by commercial interests, for paid support to lead directly to health claims findings that can be used for marketing.  Even if that hadn't been the starting point context anyone can drink pu'er, and for sure this will end up being another tea and herbs blend, with either laxative or diuretic properties, or both.  Or it would be nice if that's not the case.

Let's consider what theabrownin is all about anyway.  Google search brings up this study as the first result:   Theabrownin modulates the gut microbiome and serum metabolome in aging mice induced by D-galactose

Theabrownin (TB) is a complex oxidized polyphenol formed during the microbial fermentation of Pu-erh tea. It offers some health benefits such as weight loss, blood glucose reduction, and oxidation resistance; however, the anti-aging effect and the related mechanism have not yet been explored. In this study, symptoms of aging were induced in mice using D-galactose. Morris water maze test, hematoxylin-eosin staining, 16S rDNA high-throughput sequencing, and UHPLC-QE-MS metabolomics were used to reveal the anti-aging effects and potential mechanism of TB...

So they just throw it out there that of course it supports weight loss, but they're on to reviewing anti-aging potential in that work.  Maybe that's why I look so young (but I drink young sheng the most?).  The background is clear on what they're looking into, but the part about it relating to ripe or shou pu'er isn't promising to me though, as a sheng drinker:

Pu-erh tea is a traditional, historically famous tea from Yunnan, China, made from sun-dried green tea of large-leaf tea trees (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) by microbial solid-state fermentation (Liang et al., 2005, Zhao et al., 2010). It has a unique flavor, full-bodied aroma, outstanding aging aroma, and is a bright red soup with a mellow taste. TB is one of the essential active ingredients of Pu-erh tea. The content of TB in Pu-erh ripe tea can reach 16.86%, which is the primary color substance of Pu-erh ripe tea and plays a decisive role in its quality and function (Qin et al., 2009)...

[in later conclusions]...Drinking Pu-erh ripe tea can produce a variety of metabolic changes in the human body that are linked to the intestinal flora. Therefore, it is suggested that drinking pu-erh tea may change and adjust the structure of intestinal flora (Qasim, Aziz, Rasheed, Gul, & Khan, 2016)...

The linked claims here seem clear enough:  shou pu'er supports healthy digestion function, which carries over to a range of benefits, all the way to supporting longevity and mental health in later life.  How this ties to weight loss isn't clear in this paper; maybe that's a completely unrelated additional positive effect.  Maybe well-aged sheng could mirror this compound inclusion and final effect; that would all be the subject of another study.  

One more aside, they were using Dayi shou for the tests; nice.  Some aged CNNP / Zhong Cha would also be pleasant, but it's good that it worked using a newer version "(label No.7262, batch No.1801, produced on July 5, 2018)."  With that published in February 2022 it had probably had a few years to lose that early funky character, which I can't imagine changes the weight loss or anti-aging effects.

It's not inconceivable that some mix of shou pu'er and herbs could provide some new set of inputs and effects, even though I've been skeptical of that being remotely possible in this discussion.  It would really only be possible to question or dismiss any specific set of claims based on product information and review of related effects from ingredient inputs.

If those entrepreneurs turned up some supposedly traditional Chinese tea and herb blend recipe said to cause weight loss I would still be skeptical, but that couldn't be automatically dismissed.  The Indian Ayurvedic tradition seems to draw on those themes in a parallel way, on a mix of herb inputs or foods accomplishing what any one alone does not cause.  That does seem to be what Traditional Chinese Medicine was always about, combining a range of supporting inputs, not this one-to-one cause and effect sort of sequence that we focus on more in "the West," in terms of supplements, medicine, and other health inputs.

The only claim and background communicated so far relates to modern, relatively Western-style research study, and from the little I've reviewed, or that they have mentioned.  It only relates to drinking fermented / shou pu'er, somewhat explicitly, but even that is indirect.  Even if shou does happen to cause weight loss drinking Dayi already covers that, or any standard source brand.  If this new product is just shou pu'er with extra herbs to function as a diuretic and laxative it will follow the prior pattern, and won't be worth much consideration.

I hope that it's not that, that they create something novel, interesting, and useful.

Roasted papaya seeds as a coffee substitute, with monk fruit seeds

Oddly I wasn't trying to see if roasted papaya seeds might work as a coffee substitute, and I certainly wasn't focusing on any specific health claim benefits.  It came up that the seeds might be healthy, so I prepared them in an arbitrary way, and it was amazing how similar they are to coffee.  You can skip ahead to that part in a "review" section, or hear about the background, and another tisane I prepaired them with, monk-fruit seeds.  It's more or less some sort of super-food input too, it turns out; strange.

 

This all started with seeing a gag video of a woman eating a papaya, consuming the seeds instead of the fruit.  Several comments said that you really should eat them, that they're healthy, especially related to clearing out internal parasites.  So I dried them the next time I bought a papaya, a couple days later.  That cost me less than $2 for a huge, almost ripe one; Thailand is an absolute paradise for tropical fruit.

I warmed them in a toaster oven for 20 minutes and they didn't fully dry, so I gave them another 20 minutes at 160 C.  That seemed to roast them a little, going beyond drying them, which didn't seem like a concern, or maybe even a positive input.  

I then crushed them in a mortar and pestle device and brewed them along with a sweet Chinese herb my favorite shop owners gave me last week (seeds of a monk fruit, it turns out).  It's a little too sweet and a bit one-dimensional on its own, so it seemed perfect for combining with this, since surely dried papaya seeds aren't very sweet (probably; I guess I still don't know that for sure).

Let's check on monk fruit background and health benefits and then set that aside:

Monk fruit is known for its delicious, sweet taste that comes from natural antioxidants such as flavonoids and mogrosides. It is currently gaining popularity as a natural, low-calorie sweetener.

Monk fruit extract has been used in traditional medicine for centuries due to the following potential health benefits:

Prevents oxidative damage

Studies in rats and mice have shown that monk fruit antioxidants have protective effects...

Research suggests that flavonoids and mogrosides in monk fruit can reduce blood sugar levels. According to a study, monk fruit extract can reduce inflammation, repair damaged cells in the pancreas, and relieve symptoms in mice with diabetes...

Research shows that eating mogrosides helps suppress fat and cholesterol levels and reduce body weight in mice with obesity...

Monk fruit polysaccharides can increase the activity and function of immune system organs like the thymus and spleen in mice... 

Monk fruit can protect the liver and even repair liver damage....

That shop owner (Kittichai of Jip Eu) said that it helps with a fever, that you can take it to help your immune system when you are sick.  I got the impression that he also meant that it reduces internal heat in the Traditional Chinese Medicine sense, the heat / cold / wind / qi kind of theme, which I know nothing about.  

It's definitely really sweet, and it has a more pleasant flavor than stevia, which has more of an aftertaste.

Review:

it's oily

This is really good.  I really didn't expect this to be good; that wasn't in the range of what I expected as a possible outcome.  It tastes like coffee; this could be coffee.  Then there's an herbal edge to it's that's not coffee, so I suppose it could be coffee flavored in some way, like with one of those flavored creamers.  Of course I can't separate the input of the monk fruit, but from having that alone earlier it adds a relatively neutral and intense sweetness. 

The flavor list:  coffee, mild bitterness, oily / creamy feel (ok, that's not a flavor), sweetness (a little like stevia, but not as aggressive, but with a similar but lighter aftertaste).  There's also an odd flavor resembling root spice, like root beer, so sassafras root.  A rich, warm dried fruit tone resembles tamarind; that might be partly from the monk fruit, and I just don't remember it tasting like that, since maybe the sweetness overpowered the flavor trying it alone.

The oily feel is odd; that's pleasant, in this context, but paired with other flavors it could be really off-putting.  It's just like how gas station coffee feels when you add artificial creamer to it; it's thicker and creamier than cream causes.  There is literally an oil coating on the top of this so that's no wonder.  They're seeds; they can contain as much oil as they happen to.

for once I Western-style brewed something, and used a strainer

Second infusion:  like the first round, but much thinner.  The sweetness of that herb is even more pronounced, because those just keep brewing, but the papaya seed is surely done now.  It's even closer to gas station coffee now.

I don't mean that as a criticism.  For older people who were there in the 20th century gas station coffee was a respectable thing.  I would add for younger people that it's like grocery store tin coffee but I bet that's not going to help.  Like McDonald's coffee, or Tim Horton's?  Just kidding; I only eat the doughnuts there, and I don't know what it's like.  Their maple cream-filled doughnuts are so good though.

I bet if you bumped this roast level just a little it could seem like French roast.  This is still medium roast level, and since there is no "light" that means light (outside the coffee world; they probably have it).  Then with actual cream and sugar it might seem even more like coffee, almost exactly like it.

Background on papaya seeds as coffee replacement, health benefits

I Google searched use of papaya seeds as a coffee replacement, and it doesn't seem like a common theme, but it did turn up.  This wasn't what I expected:  The Potency of Carica papaya L. Seeds Powderas Anti- Obesity ‘Coffee’ Drinks

Other formal and informal sources aren't making and reviewing this health claim, or even mentioning this subject.  Here is their conclusion:

Based on the above explanation, it can be concluded that 25.1 grams of papaya seed powder can be obtained from 250.0 grams of wet papaya seeds. Most respondents like the texture, color, aroma, and taste of papaya seeds ‘coffee’. The pancreatic lipase inhibition power of 1.42 gram of papaya seed powder is equivalent to 1 tablet (120.0 mg) of Orlistat. Therefore, using papaya seed powder as antiobesity ‘coffee’ drink is reasonable.

Reasonable?  The obvious question is "what is a lipase inhibitor?"  Then next one might wonder if these results are reliable, and if these papaya seeds really function as that as claimed (supported by their actual research study, so maybe).  But let's start with what they are claiming.

Wikipedia article on Orlistat:

Orlistat, sold under the brand name Xenical among others, is a medication used to treat obesity. Its primary function is preventing the absorption of fats from the human diet by acting as a lipase inhibitor, thereby reducing caloric intake. It is intended for use in conjunction with a healthcare provider-supervised reduced-calorie diet.[4]...

Sure, but again what even is a lipase inhibitor?

Human pancreatic lipase

Pancreatic lipase, also known as pancreatic triacylglycerol lipase or steapsin, is an enzyme secreted from the pancreas. As the primary lipase enzyme that hydrolyzes (breaks down) dietary fat molecules in the human digestive system, it is one of the main digestive enzymes, converting triglyceride substrates like 1 found in ingested oils to monoglycerides 3 and free fatty acids 2a and 2b.[5]

So it stops you from digesting some of the fat that you eat.  And this is why the Wikipedia article on Orlistat mentions that a lipase inhibitor can cause your stool (your poop) to seem oily and have a loose texture.  A little of that would go a long way.

It's impossible to estimate my dosage from that.  This might've been about 5 grams (could be 7), and they said that 10 grams makes 1 gram of powder, and you should take 1.4.  So I'm at one third to half of a normal dose, from the seeds from one large papaya?  I'll add how that went in terms of digestion impact tomorrow.  [later edit:  noticeable, and like Wikipedia described, but not problematic].

Reading around these sources they say that it works (lipase inhibitors, not papaya seeds).  I don't want anything adjusting my digestive system, even though I did gain one kg the last time I was weighed (up to 75; I might fast for a week instead of 5 days next time, to get that kg back off).

The standard health-page input is that it's good for supplementation and treating all sorts of things, including bacterial infections, fungal infections, and parasites.  Who knows; maybe.

It's good though, pleasant to drink.  I'll make this again the next time I buy a papaya, since the trees in our yard don't seem to be on that page of offering one just now.  

that's 4 of them, but the middle one has died since

Thinking back this may be the closest I've come to drinking coffee this year.  That's crazy!  In the past I would sometimes drink it at work, but I barely go to work in the office now, one day a week, unless I'm out of the country working remotely.  I'm in the habit of drinking tea-bag tea there now, since I never took tea and an infuser to that new office site.  Then I would drink coffee at hotel breakfasts when we travel in Thailand, but we last traveled in Thailand in Dec-Jan, the holiday break.  

I guess I'm not much of a conventional American now.  At least I've been in a cycle of eating hamburgers recently, but still made out of ground pork, still following the norm that Thais don't eat beef, even though I'm living alone.  At least I grill sometimes?

I'm shocked that this tisane was this good, that it's far and away the best "herb tea" replacement for coffee that I've ever tried, so close to the flavor and feel of coffee.  Who knows about the health claims; those don't seem to matter, unless you could arrange to drink it regularly.

It's a little odd that I experimented with using papaya leaf as a tisane almost 8 years ago and this theme never came up.

Anyone who eats papaya once in awhile should give this a try.  Not even for the health claims, or to replace coffee, just because it's actually good.

Potential fasting health benefits; normalizing fasting practice

 

The last post about fasting experience settled in on "why?," never fully resolving that, and I'll only repeat that theme a bit here, extending it to two different directions.

The main answer in the past has been "to experiment."  Of course most people fast to lose weight, but my own body weight seems strongly inclined to return to the previous level (about 74 kg or 165 pounds), and since that's reasonable I don't try to adjust that.  Maybe I should shift back to more like 71 kg / 160, and will at some point.

After 20 days of experience of not eating that initial experimentation phase is kind of done; so what's next?  Any answer would relate to potential or expected health benefits, so lets summarize that, after placing why I'm trying to communicate this.

I would like to share these ideas to make the option to practice fasting open to more people.  I don't need to validate what I'm doing, to get others to join in so it makes it seem like it really does make sense.  For the most part I don't care what other people do, or think.  Related to helping other people I make an exception, and then if I can I do.  So I guess all this is a claim that I buy into the health benefits?  I'm a bit skeptical, but otherwise I do.

On to potential benefits.

Fasting may enable metabolic flexibility.  This would allow someone to use body fat energy more effectively, which could apply well to exercise, not just to not eating, although I guess also to being able to skip lunch.  I do seem to experience improved energy level on longer runs.  

I last tested out running four miles on day 4 of a fast, so completely into ketosis, with glycogen reserves long since expended, and that went ok.  I was experiencing minor knee soreness (so probably shouldn't have even ran that), so I didn't try out a longer test.

Fasting reduces insulin resistance:  This actually seems to work; it seems more clearly documented as an actual positive effect.  For people at risk of developing adult onset diabetes--which is a significant risk for me; both of my grandmothers and one uncle developed that--they can reduce that risk through fasting, moderating body weight, and reducing high levels of intake of carbohydrates, especially refined sugars. 

There's nothing necessarily dangerous about all refined sugar intake, per my understanding (which is not necessarily well-informed), it's that it's easy to bump that to very high levels, and then actual risk does come up.  Drinking 32 ounces of soda relates to about 100 grams of sugar consumption, at around 336 calories, or one sixth of a normal day's dietary caloric intake.  That's like eating 6 1/2 apples; which would take longer to digest for all that fiber, even if you could eat that many.  Risk also relates to that being empty of any other nutrient content, to that potentially adding to a positive caloric balance (more taken in than used), and to problems with your body handling the related blood sugar.  Conversion to body fat can occur, and some other negative side effects, and to developed insulin resistance.  

It's probably better to moderate body weight and mind dietary inputs than to use fasting to offset impacts of being overweight and eating a bad diet.  Or doing both is an option.  Maintaining significant muscle mass also helps (not like bodybuilders, I mean average or more than average), for different reasons, especially since muscle tissue stores glycogen (reserve energy), but I don't want to write out too many tangents in this.

Fasting may reduce visceral body fat.  There are tests for this sort of thing, so I could be documenting this (my actual proportion of body fat by location), but I'm not.  The idea is that fat in or between organs is used first when fasting, and that first change is not at all just a cosmetic concern.  Liver function should improve as a direct result of regular fasting, if fat deposits in the liver were an issue to begin with.  How often is that relevant though?  Who knows.  Blood compound markers would show that, but I'm not minding those, and missed my last annual health check at work due to being out of the country then.  

I can add that I've put on about 3 kgs (6 1/2 pounds) over the last two years and my waist size was a little larger a year ago, and then bumping running volume and perhaps fasting dropped it back to where it had been.  Thinking it through storing visceral fat in the form of what is in between internal organs may or may not be a bad thing, but it seems clearer that storing fat within your liver is a problem.

More mental clarity, reduced aging effects:  hard to say about these kinds of changes.  I feel ok, probably a little clearer, but that's hard to track.  Maybe I do have slightly less grey hair than a year ago, which is odd.  I can even sometimes see eyebrow hair change from white to brown again, since those being two colors stands out more--hard to place that.  I've been running more since then too, really keeping up with sleep, exercising a lot more, and my diet has improved a bit.  

And I've ramped up intake of goji berries as a daily supplement; that might've helped.  I finished a kg I bought in mid-June recently, so I seem to be consuming 350 grams or so per month, just over 10 grams a day, a good bit.  Why?  My thinking was that I try to eat a lot of fruit but don't get to that every day, and I definitely can put 10 grams or so of dried berries in hot water and then consume the infusion and fruit, every day, regardless of what I happen to be eating that day.  Supposedly one compound in those offsets aging impact, but even if it's the nutrients in them that are healthy instead that also works.

Fasting may offset cancer

This is a big one, and this tangent runs longer than I intended, since I've been reviewing this subject a good bit lately, just not necessarily in a focused form.  

I have no idea if fasting does really offset cancer risk or assist with resolution, but many, many sources claim that both do occur.  I can't sort out which potential claims work or don't work, or when and how they apply.  From catching a bit of cancer experience related Youtube content--which I'll say more about here--cancer cells do consume a lot of blood sugar, so that a main way of tracking growth of such tissue is to just monitor where the most is being consumed in the body (after you ingest some radioactive sugar; kind of a strange process).  I'm not really caught up on what my cells are using for an energy source right now (it's day 2 of a fast, as I write the first draft, long before posting this), but of course my carbohydrate intake is over, for now.  I'll probably be "in ketosis" later today, whatever that means.  

Autophagy is said to occur during fasting (and it really does, but exactly what that means is harder to pin down).  At a minimum your body consumes internal body fat (of course; how else could you stay alive, since only using muscle tissue as an energy source would make less sense), and it may recycle all sorts of damaged cells.  It's a complicated subject though, one that's hard to sort out.

Someone could easily turn up a lot of content saying that fasting really does offset cancer risk (this is an interesting example), or support treatment / resolution, but how good any of those sources are would be hard to settle.  Cancer isn't just one thing, and experiences would vary, and a topic like that naturally relates to a lot of people repeating what they want to be true, filtering their own reference source input.  A lot of light medical advice looks more solid than it might really be, and a source citing other sources isn't clearly well-grounded until you also evaluate those.  That linked video reference cites a lot of research background, but even for those kinds of sources you need to be careful; you might read only about studies supporting some claim, when conclusions from other studies also reject that connection.

Those cancer related accounts come from running across a Youtube channel about someone experiencing cancer, Paul in Perth, and then the Youtube algorithm showing me plenty more of that since that's how it works.  If you watch one channel about puppies, even if you're not subscribed to it, you'll see lots more of that in your feed there.  It can be a little depressing, watching people talk about dying, but for the most part those stories are about being hopeful and positive when things are dark for them.  To me those people tend to be more inspiring than any other accounts of any subjects.

In a comment I asked Paul in Perth if he could use fasting for cancer resolution and he said that it could have potentially helped at an earlier stage, but for his disease being so far progressed negative effects related to recovery from chemo treatments made it relatively unsuitable (per his understanding, related to his own condition and type of cancer).  

I just saw a video of a guy literally at the end, Daryl, saying that he was signing off since he would die within a day or two, and he was much more positive and upbeat than almost any movie review content.  He showed a box / urn he picked out, shook it, and said "this is light; I guess I'm not in there yet."  A 16 year old girl, who goes by So Fia, ended a long series of posts about her struggle focused entirely on the positive, about her love of life, and appreciation for what she had.  She was so much stronger, braver, and more wise than any other "healthy" influencer type I've ever seen.  The main message is usually one of hope and optimism, about appreciation for life, not fear of death.

None of this related to fasting, to be clear.  None of them even tried it out as a form of partial resolution, although there surely are videos out there about people who did feel fasting helped them, which again would be hard to evaluate, or people trying it and not noticing any positive difference.  

Should those people have tried it out?  I have no idea.  According to health claims within "fasting circles" of course they should have, but personally I can't place that.  There is no clear cause and effect for why they developed cancer, or why others experienced miracle recoveries that they did not, some related to fasting and many more not (the first guy I mentioned a video channel for is still alive; the other two are not).  

In many cases people link cancer experience to high carbohydrate diets (back to hearsay input from cancer patients, to be clear).  Discussion of treatment experimentation comes up more related to keto-oriented diets (more than fasting, I suppose, at least per limited and random sampling).  That's not intended as a claim that generality or that resolution practice is effective, I'm referencing their understanding.  In looking up those video links this content creator thinks his cancer stemmed from a vitamin D deficiency, oxidative stress (from multiple inputs), from alcohol exposure, and a high carbohydrate diet.  Who knows; maybe those were the main causes, surely along with genetics.  

I've skipped including links to people claiming fasting helped them resolve cancer experiences here; even a post focused on that topic would be taking on a lot.  I'd also be careful of trusting what seem to be very well grounded but light information sources online linking fasting with cancer prevention or resolution, of which there are many.  It can seem that if one source might be valid or could be questionable that 10 taken together must be reliable, but many people make videos citing the same studies on mice that may or may not mean a lot related to actual human experience.  They might be generating that content with a slightly different spin mostly to draw viewership, without really turning up any new insights, or in some cases even without reviewing more grounded sources.

Why would I embrace fasting as a means to potentially offset a risk that's not necessarily high for me, when it's hard to clearly determine the linkage that it even works (beyond a lot of claims floating around)?  One partial answer is that I'm discussing potential reduced risk of dying, at a cost of not eating sometimes.  I've spent roughly 20 days fasting over the past year (25, after editing this; I just finished another 5 day fast), and the main cost or impact was increased hunger and reduced clarity and energy level over that time.  All of that was much more moderate in the last fast, and hunger is much more of a non-issue this time too.  People actually claim that fasting improves mental clarity, but what I mean here is that energy level fluctuations have an impact, especially in the first 3 or 4 trials.

Another partial answer is that reduced cancer risk isn't really the main benefit people associate with fasting, beyond weight loss, and it's not necessarily a main reason I'm doing it.  Supposedly--as mentioned--it offsets effects of aging, increases mental clarity (when it's not offsetting it), reduces visceral fat levels and impact, and offsets risks from insulin resistance, lowering risk of diabetes.  Autophagy is another subject I won't really get into here, closely linked to potentially reduced cancer risk, which I've covered more in the past.

Why wouldn't people fast then?  There seems to be a lot of potential benefit, and most people could use to lose a few pounds.  Let's address that separately.  

Why not fast?  Normalizing fasting practice.

In discussing that in a health related thread someone commented "that sounds like complete torture."  There's that; hunger experience is profound over the first few trials.  It's so negative that exposure to a consistent problematic condition like that works as a mindfulness tool, a way of experiencing the present moment differently.

In light of that it would be natural for people not to fast if they aren't sold on any of these benefits, if they have no clear reason to.  I'm only going to mention it to set it aside here but it's hard to be certain any of these claims completely work.  What someone considers good evidence would shift what any individual review would turn up.  If it's only to find documented research of multiple independent findings then maybe that would be possible, but you would still need to interpret what a number of narrow studies really mean in actual practice.

If finding a couple of dozen "health expert" claims and personal experience accounts is enough then that would be an easy bar to clear.  I'm a bit skeptical by nature, so I tend to arrive at probabilities related to what I think is accurate, not necessarily even trying to sort out the final facts of the matter.

Some people might actually regard fasting as posing health risks, although anyone unfamiliar with the subject also couldn't be clear on what those are.  Vitamin deficiency, stomach problems?  The second is mentioned more, when you tell people you practice fasting (per my experience, at least).  

Oddly people who eat continuously throughout the day would actually routinely experience stomach problems, and I never do, because I eat moderate amounts of foods almost entirely as three meals.  That was true before I tried out fasting too though.  I'm unfamiliar with what it's like to regularly experience an upset stomach, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, or any problems with digesting food.  By "regularly" I mean that I might eat something that speeds up my digestion process once a year, or every other year, or that makes me even sicker every half dozen years.  That's not bad for eating a broad mix of local foods in Bangkok.  The rest I essentially never experience.  Some vegetables, legumes and beans, or high protein foods cause gas; that range of experience is familiar, especially as a former long-term vegetarian.

Fasting hasn't caused me any noticeable stomach problems, in those 25 days.  I get hungry, but not like during the first three trials.  That relates more to an empty feeling than other types of discomfort.  Really empty; it's hard to describe.  As of writing an initial draft of this, on day 2 of 5, I could go for most of an hour without being reminded that I am fasting, and the next day maybe even longer, but that's not to say that I felt no negative side effects.  I was hungry, with a low energy level, but I might not notice either for awhile if I'm busy, or even watching a video.

In bodybuilding circles rapid fat loss is very desirable, but muscle tissue loss is a serious concern, so fasting can be applied, but only in limited forms and contexts.  One of the main intros to this subject, that partly led me to explore fasting practices, was from one longevity related "biohacker" bringing it up, and one bodybuilder (Leo and Longevity and "Vigorous Steve," who isn't as far out there as his Youtuber brand name implies, but a little maybe).  

Steve used fasting to rapidly resolve fatty liver disease, even though applying a fasting mimicking diet for weeks cost him plenty of muscle mass loss.  Most of that muscle came back fast, and it seemed the very real health risk caused him to reconsider even trying to be as massive again (the 250 pound or up range, I think).  Leo explored fasting as he did many longevity related pursuits.  Steve feels absolutely certain that fasting does definitely reduce visceral body fat, from experiencing that, and perhaps Leo's direct experiential claims are harder to evaluate.

Most people in a Reddit fasting sub-forum I follow practice fasting mainly to lose weight, which makes sense.  It's a somewhat radical approach, but it should work.  Often people either struggle to make it through 24 hours there or else really swing for the fence and go straight to attempting 21 day fasts, which I see as unnecessarily difficult and risky.  With more exposure people seem to settle on alternating fasting and eating, on a 2 or 3 day cycle, which they might refer to as "rolling 72s," the hour duration.  Since the benefit of autophagy is said to "kick in" after 2 days I would think using a 3 day cycle might be better than 2.  Or 4 would work; for me the second day is hardest in terms of hunger and the third is most disruptive for experienced energy level.  

Few people would be familiar with how fasting isn't as unpleasant an experience after repeated exposure.  I can compare it to how running can definitely seem distinctly unpleasant prior to more exposure than most people would ever experience, and then it's kind of pleasant, even addictive.  I think fasting ends up being more neutral, not so difficult, and definitely not pleasant, but just normal over time.  

Maybe level of discomfort can be comparable to when you get 5 or 6 hours sleep instead of 8 (which I don't do; I need my sleep, and I put my time in with sleep deprivation working night shifts when younger and raising young kids after that).  For many people that's a normal trade-off, a way to go through life, so that eventually they wouldn't even notice feeling a bit hazy and off, after their body adjusts to it.  At this point I'd much rather not eat for a day or two than try to function on 5 hours sleep.

My take on fasting benefits

I've really not been clear on how many benefits I buy into here, or which I seem to directly experience.  That only works so well because the largest scale benefits you can't pin down, like reducing cancer or diabetes risk.  Maybe I'm mentally clearer, but that's really hard to track too.  So many things factor into that.  My experience of digestion can't improve because I've never had problems, but it hasn't worsened.  

Resetting my diet to a somewhat healthier form has definitely happened, but oddly I was eating a really healthy diet a year ago, before a first trial.  There were a few snacks to shift to a healthier form, and I could've dialed in generally healthy food intake to a level that may be a bit extreme, and did so.  I think all of that has supported taking my running habit a lot further over the past year, but again inputs and outcomes are complicated.  I know that I've ran between 15 and 20 miles a week for all this year, but I can't trace that directly back to diet improvement; maybe I could've did the same eating worse instead of better.  I feel like it helped my energy level when running, the metabolic flexibility theme, but who knows.  

It's too bad I skipped my annual health check-up last year, due to being out of the country when my company conducts those, and probably will again this year; that would be a good way to track some change, potentially, and undergoing that is a good idea in general.

Fasting has changed how I experience an urge to snack between meals, which was always somewhat limited.  I had switched from eating a bit of chocolate--or potato chips, if they were around--to some mixed nuts between meals around a year ago, and after fasting I tend to snack as a habit even less.  Fasting highlights how much of that practice relates to immediate triggers, like seeing something, or to boredom, and it can become more normal to drop out both cycles.

In conclusion...

Fasting is an option?  But then it always was.  

I've taken up and set aside a lot of atypical practices over the course of my life, and it's interesting considering why others don't do those things, or when maybe more will, or I guess in some cases to what extent I'm making any sense at all.  I was a vegetarian for 17 years, which I ended about a dozen years ago, due to not putting the right effort in to get it to balance, and experiencing immune system problems.  Since then it has become a lot more mainstream.  

I was into rock climbing in the early 90s, and thought this is so cool it will have to "take off," not noticing that it being gear intensive and difficult would probably prevent that (and has).  I explored Buddhism for many years, but then I always knew that was for my own reasons, that there was never going to be broad uptake.  This being a tea blog of course that pattern applies to that beverage choice too.

Fasting will probably never really have its day as a broad trend, at least not in the immediate future.  People only need to skip breakfast and lunch to see why it's not a standard option; you get hungry.  That gets worse on day two, even if it's much diminished on a third or fourth fasting experience.  "Biohacking" is much more approachable; taking a lot of supplements and drugs.  I get it.  I'm not on that page myself but I get it.

I reset to a healthier diet but it's still based on normal food