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"  Unless you&amp;#039;ve been living inside a McDonald&amp;#039;s for the past two months, you probably know that the most buzzed-about diet craze is something called intermittent fasting (IF), and that it&amp;#039;s different from any other diet you&amp;#039;ve ever read about. IF lets you eat anything you want\u2014just not when you want. And despite the &amp;quot;fasting&amp;quot; label, you don&amp;#039;t ever have to go completely without food. Confused? The non-feeding frenzy has been fueled in part by The Fast Diet, a best-selling book from England. (The U.S. edition was released in February.) The idea behind it is simple: You can eat normally on five days out of the week, but on two nonconsecutive days (you pick them) you are limited to two small meals totaling just 500 calories (600 for men). Coauthors Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, both journalists, insist that this 5:2 eating pattern not only helps you lose weight, it improves a range of metabolic and even cognitive function, and may even help delay aging. The good news is that their claims seem to be backed up by a growing body of scientific research. Even better, the diet doesn&amp;#039;t entail actual long-term fasting; you&amp;#039;re not going without food, you&amp;#039;re just going with less food. Finally, intermittent fasting is almost infinitely flexible, and you can use it to design an eating program that fits your goals and your level of willpower.  Besides 5:2, studies have shown success with alternate-day dietary restriction, and even with overnight fasting, where you limit your food intake to an eight-hour &amp;quot;window&amp;quot; each day\u2014which basically amounts to skipping late-night snacking and eating a late breakfast. Some scientists believe that by alternating our eating patterns, we more closely mimic the feast-or-famine cycles that our prehistoric ancestors knew; those cycles, in turn, helped shape our DNA. &amp;quot;We are not wired to eat all the time,&amp;quot; says Satchin Panda, a biologist and associate professor at the Salk Institute, in San Diego. Panda recently coauthored a study that found that mice on a high-fat diet gained far less weight when their eating hours were restricted to an eight-hour period than mice with 24-7 access to the same high-fat food\u2014despite consuming the same number of calories. &amp;quot;Just like you need a good light/dark cycle to regulate your sleep, your body needs an eating/fasting cycle,&amp;quot; Panda explains. During the fasting part of the cycle, scientists believe, our cells gradually switch over to a kind of survival mode, activating chemical reactions that not only burn off excess fat but also have been shown to combat the effects of aging. Studies have found that brief periods of fasting bring some of the same benefits of longer-term caloric restriction, such as increased insulin sensitivity, improved cholesterol profiles, better cognitive function, and, of course, weight loss. Animal studies have even shown a reduced risk of cancer. Why? &amp;quot;Like exercise, fasting induces a mild stress,&amp;quot; says Mark Mattson, a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging. &amp;quot;The cells are responding by producing antioxidants.&amp;quot; In other words, it&amp;#039;s good stress. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s much easier, mentally, than being on a diet,&amp;quot; says Alison Spath, 34, a mother of three who has been fasting intermittently for two years, after losing 10 pounds in three months on IF.  Spath practices a moderate form of the diet, restricting her food intake to between the hours of 11 A.M. and 7 P.M., drinking coffee, water, and tea the rest of the time. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s so great about it is that when it&amp;#039;s time to eat, I get to eat normally,&amp;quot; she says. Is IF right for you? That depends. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ve recommended a vegetable-heavy, high-protein diet of 1,000 calories two days a week to some patients, in some cases, and we&amp;#039;ve seen it work,&amp;quot; says Louis Aronne, an internist and director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. &amp;quot;But I don&amp;#039;t think you can eat whatever you want the other five days of the week.&amp;quot; Aronne says he typically finds fasting diets to be most useful in heavier patients who have failed at other dietary regimens. Indeed, the most successful fasting-diet studies have been done with obese subjects. For normal-weight people, the jury is still out. Loren Greene,a New York endocrinologist, discourages fasting if you are already very thin, have struggled with an eating disorder, or are diabetic or (especially) pregnant. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s also important to stay well hydrated,&amp;quot; she says. Moreover, experts caution against the days-long juice fasts popular in Hollywood and the fashion world. &amp;quot;People say, &amp;#039;I went on a long fast, and I lost all this weight,&amp;#039; &amp;quot; says Aronne. &amp;quot;But that&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;re burning muscle and you lost water weight. It&amp;#039;s almost an illusion of success.&amp;quot; Forget illusions. We&amp;#039;ll take real cheesecake any-time, even if we have to wait a few hours to eat it. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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