Intermittent Fasting: A Guide to Health Benefits and SIBO Implications
What is Intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting has been on all the lips lately, and for good reason. Imagine giving your digestive system a break, a pause in the constant processing of food. That's the essence of intermittent fasting — a simple yet powerful approach where you cycle between eating and fasting periods. It's not about stringent diets but rather a flexible rhythm that allows your body to reset and rejuvenate. In this article I'll explore the benefits of intermittent fasting and its unique relationship with the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC), especially benefiting those navigating the challenges of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).
Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Weight Management: Intermittent fasting can be your ally in weight management. By giving your body a break from constant grazing, it encourages fat burning and helps control calorie intake.
Cellular Repair: Fasting triggers a cellular cleanup crew aka autophagy. It's like a superhero swooping in to remove damaged cells and support the body's natural repair mechanisms.
Improved Insulin Sensitivity: The fasting periods assist in regulating blood sugar levels, promoting better insulin sensitivity. This can be a game-changer for those on the journey to prevent or manage diabetes.
Brain Boost: Believe it or not, intermittent fasting may give your brain a boost. It supports the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that's like fertilizer for your brain cells.
The Motoring Motor Complex (MMC) and SIBO
Now, let's talk about the MMC, the unsung hero of digestive health. The MMC is like a cleaning crew for your small intestine, sweeping away leftovers and keeping things moving smoothly down the digestive tract. But the MMC only occurs when you’re not eating. It gets activated every 90 minutes or so and can last up to 3 1/2 hours. And if you’re snacking all day, the MMC can’t do its job properly and complete the cycle, resulting in food and bacteria stagnating in the small intestine. This is the perfect scenario to allow for bacterial overgrow in the small intestine, potentially leading to SIBO. On the other hand, having SIBO can damage the migrating motor complex which reduces motility and keeps the body stuck in this loop of fermentation galore.
Intermittent Fasting benefits for SIBO
What intermittent fasting does is that it provides a window of rest for the digestive system, a gut reset if you will. For those with SIBO, this break can be crucial. It allows the MMC to kick in, enhancing gut motility and helping in the cleansing of the small intestine, which moves the bacteria down the digestive tract into the large intestine where they belong. As we know, SIBO often leads to excessive bacterial fermentation in the small intestine, which causes discomfort that varies from mild to extreme depending on the cases. Intermittent fasting might help limit this fermentation, providing relief to those dealing with SIBO symptoms.
How to do Intermittent Fasting
There is no hard fast rule on how to do intermittent fasting, or time-restricted eating. I find it is easily adaptable to your situation and lifestyle. Typically everyone that has ever skipped breakfast is doing intermittent fasting, even if unintentionally. Now I don’t recommend you skip breakfast, but that’s just for the sake of the explanation.You simply pick a window of time when you will not be eating (the standard is 16 hours but I recommend your start with 12 or 14 hours if you’ve never done it) and the rest of the hours within the day is your window of feeding. What this means is that you’re meant to consume all of your day’s calories within this window of feeding, for example within 8 hours if you select the 16:8 pattern. Concretely, I recommend eating breakfast and instead having an earlier dinner with no snacking until bedtime. For example, one could eat breakfast at 8am and then eat dinner at the latest at around 4pm. Now, if that doesn’t work with your lifestyle you can push that window a bit later during the day, for example breakfast at 10 am and dinner at around 6pm. Lunch can be anytime within this window, however I really recommend to space out your meals to allow the MMC to kick in and complete its cycle. For this reason, some people only eat 2 meals a day and it works for them. We can easily find a pattern that works for you, and I’d be happy to help you in that process.
Other ways of fasting
There are other ways to induce a fast if time-restricted eating is too hard to maintain for you. Some people like to do Alternate-Day Fasting (ADF), which is alternating between days of regular eating and days of significant calorie reduction or complete fasting. There is also a pattern called 5:2 Fasting, where you consume a regular diet for five days and limit calorie intake to a specific amount on two non-consecutive days. I’m personally not a fan of these for myself but I’ve seen them work very well for some individuals, typically men.
A note on fasting for women
Fasting creates stress on the body. It can impact women's hormonal balance quite significantly, especially if it is extended or in periods of higher stress. The delicate interplay between hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, is sensitive to changes in nutrition and energy availability. Extended fasting or inadequate calorie intake can signal to the body that conditions are not optimal for reproduction, potentially impacting ovulation and fertility. Since intermittent fasting is a milder (less prolonged) form of fasting, it is usually well tolerated. I tend to recommend a pattern of 14:10 to most of my clients, which is 14 hours of fasting (overnight) and a 10 hour eating window.
If you wish to fast for longer periods, it is ideal to do it in the follicular phase, and the first 10 days of your menstrual cycle, so from Day 1 (first day of menses) to Day 10 (~4 days prior to ovulation). This should not affect your hormones as much. It is not advisable to fast in the luteal phase of the cycle.
Do you feel ready to add fasting to your toolkit?
As you can see, intermittent fasting emerges as a simple yet profound practice. It's not just about what you eat but when you eat. And for those with SIBO, it might be a tool to harmonise digestion and motility. As with any lifestyle change, it's essential to consult with a knowledgable health practitioner, ensuring that intermittent fasting aligns with your individual health needs.