Intermittent fasting can help Alzheimer’s patients, here’s how

If you are alive, and not living under a rock, you might have come across hundreds of articles, and videos about the benefits of intermittent fasting. Well, looks like you can add a new benefit to the list. Intermittent fasting may be helpful for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients, suggests a study.
Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 6 million Americans and is one of the biggest forthcoming health challenges in the United States. AD is infamous for disrupting the body’s circadian rhythm, an internal biological clock that regulates many of our physiological processes. Nearly 80% of individuals with this disease have complained about this disruption, and the difficulty sleeping and worsening cognitive function at night. Currently, there are no existing treatments to overcome that. However, a new study published in suggests that intermittent fasting can do just the right thing!

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found that intermittent fasting in mice corrected the circadian disruptions seen in Alzheimer’s disease. They achieved this through time-restricted feeding, a type of intermittent fasting focused on limiting the daily eating window without limiting the amount of food consumed.
They found that mice that were kept on this time-restricted schedule showed improvements in memory and reduced accumulation of amyloid proteins in the brain.

“For many years, we assumed that the circadian disruptions seen in people with Alzheimer’s are a result of neurodegeneration, but we’re now learning it may be the other way around, circadian disruption may be one of the main drivers of Alzheimer’s pathology,” senior study author Paula Desplats, PhD, professor in the Department of Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine said in a statement. “This makes circadian disruptions a promising target for new Alzheimer’s treatments, and our findings provide the proof-of-concept for an easy and accessible way to correct these disruptions.”
People with Alzheimer’s experience a variety of disruptions to their circadian rhythms, including changes to their sleep/wake cycle, increased cognitive impairment and confusion in the evenings, and difficulty falling and staying asleep.
“Circadian disruptions in Alzheimer’s are the leading cause of nursing home placement,” said Desplats. “Anything we can do to help patients restore their circadian rhythm will make a huge difference in how we manage Alzheimer’s in the clinic and how caregivers help patients manage the disease at home.”

They also noticed improvements in the mice on a molecular level. In mice fed on a restricted schedule, multiple genes associated with Alzheimer’s and neuroinflammation were expressed differently. This schedule helped reduce the amount of amyloid protein that accumulated in the brain. Amyloid deposits are one of the most well-known features of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Time-restricted feeding is a strategy that people can easily and immediately integrate into their lives. If we can reproduce our results in humans, this approach could be a simple way to dramatically improve the lives of people living with Alzheimer’s and those who care for them,” Desplats adds.

The authors also confirmed that the findings will likely result in a human clinical trial.