Fasting May Cut Risks of Heart Disease and Diabetes

Fasting May Cut Risks of Heart Disease and Diabetes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Routine periodic fasting, which is practiced by some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), may reduce the risks of heart disease and diabetes, according to findings from the Intermountain Heart Collaborative Study conducted in Utah.

The Utah population has one of the lowest rates of death from cardiovascular disease in the U.S., likely due to the lifestyle of members of the LDS -- particularly low rates of smoking -- lead investigator Dr. Benjamin D. Horne told Reuters Health.

However, as smoking rates have dropped in other states, Utah still has one of the lowest heart disease death rates, Horne said. "There should have been some convergence of disease rates because Utah's smoking prevalence can't decline as much as other states,' but that is not what we have observed."

To investigate that paradox, Horne and colleagues at the Intermountain Medical Center in Murray first compared the rate of heart disease among 4,629 patients who were evaluated from 1993 to 2002. Close to 70 percent belonged to LDS, according to the report in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The findings confirmed that the rate of heart disease was lower among members of the LDS, 61 versus 77 percent, the investigators report. On final analysis, LDS membership was associated with a 19-percent reduced risk of heart disease.

The research team evaluated a second set of 448 patients between 2004 and 2006 to determine which lifestyle factors helped protect against heart disease. Routine periodic fasting, "taught in the LDS population from early youth," was associated with a 54-percent decreased risk of heart disease.

Fasting may represent a sign of other low-risk behaviors, the researchers suggested. But in their analysis, they adjusted the data for other factors that may affect heart disease risk, including demographics, socioeconomic status, and behavioral factors such as physical activity levels.
The effect of fasting on risk of heart disease "was not reduced by any of them, so we doubt that this is the explanation for our findings," Horne noted.

Routine periodic fasting was also associated with a reduced rate of diabetes, the authors report. By contrast, fasting did not significantly affect body weight or blood pressure.

"Most people fast for fewer than 3 days at a time," Horne said, so the main effect is most likely on sugar and insulin metabolism, rather than body weight.

He concluded: "We are encouraged that, even if this study's finding was an unusually strong effect, fasting shows great promise and deserves to be studied further."
SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, October 1, 2008.