The health nut

Rishi Sunak admitted that one of his reasons for fasting is in order to indulge. “My problem is, I love sugary things,” the Prime Minister said. “So I eat lots of sugary pastries.”

But according to experts this approach to fasting may not be the most beneficial. “Spending 36 hours avoiding food in order ‘to be able to’ eat unhealthy food at other times in the week is not a healthy approach,” says Hope. The obvious risk with not eating anything for 36 hours is that you might feel licensed to eat what you like when the fast stops and end up eating more calories than you would anyway. Any kind of intermittent fasting only works when people don’t take an “off the leash” approach to the non-fasting days.

Hope recommends adherents of the 36-hour fast proceed with caution, ideally with plenty of input from their doctors. But while doctors are quick to caution against extreme fasting, there are plenty of fasting advocates who attribute longer fasts to helping with chronic health conditions.

Steve Hendricks, author of The Oldest Cure in the World: Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting and a fasting devotee, draws on countless medical studies to prove in his book that if you stop eating for long enough you will set cellular repairs in motion that can slow ageing, and even reverse diseases like diabetes and hypertension as well as improve life for people with epilepsy, asthma, and arthritis. He is also not alone in believing that fasting protects patients from the worst of chemotherapy’s side effects.

But as with any type of fast it is important to keep hydrated. “You have to make sure with any fast that you’re drinking plenty of water, that will help you feel fuller, but also remember that you’d ordinarily get water from the food you’re eating so you’ll have to drink more than you would ordinarily,” Hope adds.