What is the best diet out there? Is there any benefit to fasting?

Here are my favorite TED talks to help answer this question: two discuss benefit of fasting.

TEDxOrangeCoast – Daniel Amen – Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLKj1puoWCg

This video is mostly about the importance of your choices on brain function. Towards the end it discusses the issue of diet, but Dr. Amen makes a very good point about how a good diet can improve brain function and actually change the structure of the brain.

Why fasting bolsters brain power: Mark Mattson at TEDx Johns Hopkins University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UkZAwKoCP8

Though he is not the most dynamic speaker, Mattson does a great job going through research showing why fasting is good for you. St. Francis, and all the saints, would be happy to hear that science is now proving something they have been doing for centuries.

Intermittent fasting has been shown to improve memory and improve functioning of Alzheimer’s patients.

Intermittent fasting options:
1. Eat only for 8 hrs per day so from 9am-5pm: not before or after
2. Eat only 500 calories for 2 days per week & regularly the other days
3. Eat only 500 calories every other day.

The Mystery of Fast-5 and D.I.E.T.: Bert Herring, MD at TEDxRiversideAvondale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHQbg4xH9lw

http://www.bertherring.com/blog/

Dr. Herring, formerly at NIH, has the following suggestions.

1) Fast 5: Eat only within a 5 hr frame of time
2) Study of 1: see what works for you by doing the following:
A. See how you feel with your diet: do you have more energy, less depression, anxiety
B. Check the following regularly
(1) Waist measurements
(2) Pulse
(3) Blood Pressure
(4) HbA1c: measures your average blood sugar level the body has had for the last 3 months (approximately)
(5) HS-CRP: measures inflammation in body