Dr. Satchin Panda: Intermittent Fasting to Improve Health, Cognition & Longevity

How we manage sunset to our bedtime, what we do between sunset and bedtime, affects most of our health.

If you're staying awake for 2 or more hours between 10 PM and 5 AM and you're engaged in some activity, whether it's physical or intellectual... That's defined as shift work. And you don't have to do it every singly day; even if you do it once a week for 50 weeks, then that itself is enough to disrupt your physiology, and metabolism, behavior, brain function like a shift worker.

Every time we stay up 2 or more hours, even for 1 night, then for the next two nights our clock is kind of trying to catch up. So, in that way, for 3 days—the day of the disruption and then 2 days following the disruption—our clock is trying to catch up with the outside time.

The rule of thumb is when the time keeper changes by 1 hour, then our internal clock takes at least a day to catch up. So, that means if you're flying from LA to New York, you're moving through 3 time zones. Then, on average, it will take 3 days to catch up with the New York time.

When it comes to nutrition quality, quantity, and timing—all these three matter. Nearly 40% of people who maintain healthy body weight—because 60% are overweight or obese ... Out of those 40%, I would say nearly the majority of them are very aware about how much eating and what quality of food they're eating.

Suppose I am healthy... and I live the life of a shift worker just for five nights... my blood glucose level will read almost like I'm pre-diabetic.

Our intestine has this peristaltic function, so it kind of contracts and expands, and that moves food ... And that peristaltic action actually slows down at night a few hours after our last meal. That's why, when people eat late at night, for example, then that food doesn't get digested...

When the Daylight Saving Time changes, particularly when we have to wake up 1 hour early, what happens is people who have an underlying heart condition, when they're waking up when the body is not ready or heart is not ready.... then there is a chance of heart attack. And in fact, people have looked at hospital records, and they find that, on those days, there is a sharp rise in heart attacks.

What typically happens is when you're trying to do 4 hours or 6 hours of time-restricted eating, people will inadvertently reduce their calorie intake.

The 1 in 5 people who are shift workers, they carry a disproportionately heavier burden of disease...

It's easy to say that 50% of adults are eating within 15 hours or longer.

Berberine, when ingested with carbohydrates... allows you to flatten out your blood glucose response ... When I took berberine and did not ingest large amounts of simple sugars or carbohydrates along with it, I experienced, I found, hypoglycemia. I felt like complete garbage for about 8 hours, and I had one of the worst headaches of my life.

The median number of times people eat within a day... is actually 7 ... 10% of people, the top decile, was eating 12 times a day.

All these forms of fasting in which the total calorie intake on any given day is reduced for one or more days in a week a month... That umbrella term became intermittent fasting.