AMA #72: Fasting: benefits for body composition and disease prevention, potential risks, and Peter's updated practical framework

**Peter Attia** (0:10)
Hey everyone, welcome to a sneak peek, Ask Me Anything or AMA episode of the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia. At the end of this short episode, I'll explain how you can access the AMA episodes in full, along with a ton of other membership benefits we've created. Or you can learn more now by going to peterattiamd.com/subscribe. So without further delay, here's today's sneak peek of the Ask Me Anything episode.
Welcome to Ask Me Anything AMA episode 72 For today's AMA, we focus on a topic we initially covered all the way back in AMA 11 in January 2020, which is all things relating to fasting. This is a topic in which my thinking has evolved greatly, as well as one that we get an almost infinite number of questions about from our subscribers. In this episode, we discuss the various types of fasting, which oftentimes can be used interchangeably, but actually can mean very different things. We talk about the reasons why people might fast and its potential benefits focusing on body composition, metabolic health, overall lifespan extension, cardiovascular disease, cancer prevention, cancer treatment, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, along with various autoimmune symptoms, including arthritis and more. We talk about the potential negative aspects of fasting that everyone should be aware of. And finally we wrap it up with a framework to help you think about this for yourself. If you're a subscriber and you want to watch the full video of this podcast, you can find it on the show notes page. If you're not a subscriber, you can still watch a sneak peek of this video on our YouTube page. So without further delay, I hope you enjoy AMA number 72

**SPEAKER_1** (1:58)
Peter, welcome to another AMA. How are you doing today?

**Peter Attia** (2:02)
I'm doing well, thank you.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:03)
That's good. It's great because today we are going to talk about a topic that I actually looked back and looked. And do you know the first time we covered this topic on an AMA? Any idea when it was?

**Peter Attia** (2:14)
Is the topic F1?

**SPEAKER_1** (2:16)
No, but it does start with an F.

**Peter Attia** (2:18)
Oh gosh. No, I don't know.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:22)
So for those listening, it is fasting today. And the first time we talked about it was AMA 11, released January 2020

**Peter Attia** (2:33)
All right.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:35)
Considering this is AMA 72, we've talked a lot about stuff in between then, before we've dedicated a full episode to it. Since then, there's been a lot of things that have changed on how you think about this. Your opinions evolved. We've kind of talked about it here and there, but it's also a topic we get asked about so much. And there's so many people who talk about this in different ways, and I think it creates some confusion. And you've written about it in the book. You do it with yourself. You have patients who do it. So we kind of gathered all these questions and said, all right, let's dedicate a full episode to this. And in it, we'll first start by just identifying the different terms. I think sometimes what causes confusion is people may say the term fasting or different versions of fasting and mean it in different ways. So once we identify that, we're then gonna focus a lot of it on what are the reasons that people may fast. What are the reasons that they see benefits? Anything from body comp to metabolic health, to just general lifespan hopes to cardiovascular disease, cancer prevention, treatment, neuro, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autoimmune symptoms, arthritis and more. So a lot of different things that we'll talk about the possible benefits. We'll also look at some possible negative consequences that people should be aware of. And then hopefully wrap it up in kind of a nice framework for people to apply it to themselves and understand how you apply it in your own life and also how you apply it with patients. So all that said, anything you want to add before we get rolling?

**Peter Attia** (4:05)
No, I don't think so. I mean, obviously, I'd love to spend some time talking about Formula One, but I don't think we're going to have time with that aggressive agenda.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:12)
Do Formula One drivers do long-term fasting? Do you know?

**Peter Attia** (4:16)
I don't know any who do.

**SPEAKER_1** (4:18)
Well, then that might be the extent of F1 in this podcast. Also, have you been to your kid's school recently? Any elementary kids have strong opinions on fasting that you've heard of recently?

**Peter Attia** (4:32)
No, but I know who to ask, so...