Over The Past Few Days,

I keep seeing articles about a 5:2 diet,

in case you have not heard of it the basic premise is that you are recommended to consume a ‘normal’ number of calories five days a week and then, for two, non-consecutive days, eat just 25% of their usual calorie total - 500 calories for women and 600 for men, there are no restrictions on the types of food you can eat and it is suggested that women can expect to lose about a 1lb a week on the diet with men losing about the same if not a little more, 

but this is not quiet the subject of this post, I was more interested in the three day fasting diet for a couple of reasons, new research suggests starving the body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection, scientists at the University of Southern California say the discovery could be particularly beneficial for people suffering from damaged immune systems, such as cancer patients on chemotherapy, it could also help the elderly whose immune system becomes less effective as they age, making it harder for them to fight off even common diseases, the researchers say fasting "flips a regenerative switch" which prompts stem cells to create brand new white blood cells, 

'it gives the 'OK' for stem cells to go ahead and begin proliferating and rebuild the entire system,' said Prof Valter Longo, Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the University of California, and the good news is that the body got rid of the parts of the system that might be damaged or old, the inefficient parts, during the fasting, 'we could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the hematopoietic system,' added Prof Longo,

there are of course detractors, Dr Graham Rook, emeritus professor of immunology at University College London, said the study sounded "improbable", Chris Mason, Professor of Regenerative Medicine at UCL, said: 'there is some interesting data here, it sees that fasting reduces the number and size of cells and then re-feeding at 72 hours saw a rebound', but if it works that would be great, also think of your food bill, only 4 days shopping for food instead of 7!