Andreas Michalsen - The Fasting Fix: Eat Smarter, Fast Better, Live Longer

For ten years, I have been head of the department of internal and complementary medicine at Immanuel Hospital Berlin and a professor of clinical complementary medicine at Charit university medical center in Berlinand right now, the health care practice I find most important, both personally and professionally, is nutrition. But I didnt always believe this. Growing up, I had learned that following a healthy diet should be considered a part of medicine. I absorbed this from my parents, particularly from my father, a doctor who focused on complementary medicine. In spite of this upbringing, I ate fast food and sweets, and even smoked during my time as a medical resident and during all those long nights working shifts in the intensive care unit and going out on emergency calls with ambulances. Vegetables and salads were rarely part of my diet; meals just had to be quick and filling. I got my comeuppance in my early thirties when an occupational medical exam showed that I had high blood pressure and significantly elevated blood lipid levels. My colleague advised me to change my lifestyle. Having witnessed many patients suffering from heart attacks and strokes, both of which are often consequences of an unhealthy diet or lifestyle, I took my colleagues advice to heart. I adopted a Mediterranean diet and quit smoking. Six months later, my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels were back to normal.

I began to consider how we should actually be researching and teaching patients how to use proper nutrition to protect ourselves from illnesses early on. In the department for internal medicine where I was working at the time, I shifted my clinical and scientific research to focus on developing specific lifestyle programs for patients, to prevent cardiovascular disease. Eventually, I turned to the field of complementary medicine. I was astonished to learn about the health benefits that could be achieved with a change in diet, especially when combined with therapeutic fasting. I examined the effects of fasting and healthy eating in clinical studies and wanted to understand the causes of these healthy effects. In 2008, researchers studying aging (and antiaging) arrived at the conclusion that there is no single drug or medical measure that can promise a long and healthy life. There is only one way: fasting! Inspired, I got in touch with scientists and fasting researchers all around the world. Together, we cultivated fruitful exchanges and nurtured an intense scientific occupation around the question: How is fasting able to prolong life in such a unique way?

When I considered my medical experience alongside new research, it became clear that fasting and eating fit together like lock and key. Through regular therapeutic fasting, intermittent fasting, and a mostly plant-based diet with few processed foods, we can prevent most chronic diseases. Fasting and eating complement each other perfectly. Research on fasting has revealed impressive findings and therapeutic success with thousands of patients, suggesting that combining regular fasting with healthy eating is the best thing we can do for our body.

The purpose of this book is to show you how you can eat better and fast easily and correctly, in order to improve your quality of life, achieve better health, and ultimately live longer.

I would like not only to convince you to engage with your diet and your health but also to give you the tools you need to actively take care of your health, because it is in your hands!

Do not rely on medications and procedures that only fight the symptoms. You have the power to address the root cause of illness. Seventy percent of the chronic diseases that we suffer from as we get older are partly caused by the wrong diet.

Hippocrates, the forefather of medicine, put nutrition and daita (healing through lifestyle) at the center of all his therapies. Modern medicine recognizes the relationship between nutrition, lifestyle, and healing, yet even so, many doctors continue to push for medications and procedures that are expensive and come with numerous side effects: antihypertensive medications for high blood pressure, antidiabetic drugs for diabetes, anti-inflammatory drugs for inflammation, and statins for elevated levels of blood lipids. Obesity is more and more often treated with surgical procedures.

Counteracting and preventing diseases through nutrition and fasting, on the other hand, doesnt cost muchand its highly effective for your health. Fasting should have a permanent place in our lives once more, as it did for our ancestors. After years of research, I decided to adopt a completely vegetarian dietpartly for health reasons, but also because Im convinced that this is the diet that will ensure our planets future.