SHOULD WOMEN BE FASTING?

How to incorporate intermittent fasting without wreaking havoc on your hormones

According to advocates of intermittent fasting (IF), strategically skipping a meal or two has a host of health benefits: it lowers your diabetes risk by decreasing insulin resistance; enhances growth hormone production (good for anti-ageing); and improves cognition through the release of dopamine.

In short, IF is a way of eating that focuses on when you eat instead of what you eat, and involves going without food for a determined period of time. One popular approach is the 16:8 fast, where you fast for 16 hours (say between the hours of 7pm and 11am), and eat within an eight-hour window. Then there is the 5:2 method, where you restrict your food intake to about 500 calories for two days a week and eat normally the other five days. Others prefer a 24-hour fast once or twice a week.

As trendy as fasting has become, it seems that it may not be beneficial for everyone – and women in particular need to be careful.

WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY

As Dr Jason Fung, a nephrologist and worldleading expert on IF and low-carb lifestyles, explains, fasting is not a new idea. Men and women have been fasting for religious reasons for thousands of years; usually only pregnant women, the sick and children abstain from this practice. He adds that in his own clinic, where close to 1 000 patients have been treated using fasting protocols, he hasn’t noticed any significant difference in outcomes between men and women. If anything, he says, ‘Women tend to do better – men, it seems, are sometimes just big babies.’

Despite its potential benefits for autoimmunity and chronic disease, Dr Amy Myers, a globally renowned leader in functional medicine, warns that IF isn’t for everyone. In her