Improved brain health
The 5:2 intermittent fasting method—eating normally five days a week and significantly reducing calorie intake on two days—not only helps with weight loss but also improves memory and other cognitive functions in older adults—by 20% more than with comparable
The study examined an eight-week fasting regimen. The participants were 63 years old on average. Half of them consumed fewer than 500 kilocalories on fasting days.
However, the 5:2 model is not the only option. In a three-month study involving 96 obese adults, “alternating fasting”— one day of normal eating alternating with a day of severely calorie-restricted eating—improved cognitive performance more significantly than a Mediterranean or ketogenic control diet.
Daily 15:9 fasting—fasting for 15 hours and eating within a 9-hour time window—also proved to be effective. Incidentally, in an earlier study, even a standard, continuous calorie restriction improved verbal memory in older adults by an average of 20 percent—a suggestion that weight loss and improved insulin sensitivity might be at least as important as the fasting rhythm itself.
