- Welcome to the Natural Health for People in Pets podcast. A show that aims to empower you with the knowledge and tools needed to take control of your own health and wellbeing, as well as providing health promoting strategies for the dogs in your life. The world of health and nutrition can be overwhelming. So what better way to understand what works and what doesn't, what's evidence-based and what's not, then to hear it from someone in the know.
So please welcome your host of the show, accredited naturopath and nutritionist Narelle Cook. - Welcome back to Natural Health for People and Pets. I'm your co-host Glenn Cook, and introducing the host of the show. We've got Narelle Cook. - Hello everyone. Welcome back. Welcome back. Mm. - So last episode we had your first live guest on. - Yeah, so we interviewed Brittany Young. Mm-Hmm. . And that was all about transparency in particularly the raw food manufacturing business.
So that was fascinating. Had a lot of good feedback from that interview. So thanks Brittany. - I agree. Thanks Brittany, for coming along and sharing some of that 'cause it was a real eye-opener for me too. Yeah, - It was fascinating. Mm-Hmm. - Certainly was. So a couple of things are happening. You've got some seminars in the future and you've got one coming up early next year. - Yeah. So we've planned a nutrition seminar in Canberra. Mm-Hmm. for next February. So it's the 20th of Feb. Yep.
It's being hosted by Eleni at all round. Good Hounds. Mm-Hmm. . So you'll start to see some advertising on Facebook. I'll put it out there. Eleni will pop it out there. So all the details will be on the flyer. Yep. But that's yet 20th of Feb. It's a Saturday. It's all day. It's gonna be amazing. So it's great that after all of this time in lockdown and not being able to run seminars in 2020 that, you know, we can get back into it.
- Yeah. It's been quite cruel for a lot of people really, who had big things planned for this year in particular. I know we were supposed to be doing a few seminars that got canceled ourselves. Couple around Australia and some talking events in the United States and so forth, which was really unfortunate that all that fell apart. But you know, it's not just us, it's pretty much the whole world.
It is. Everyone got bitten by the Covid menace - And I guess we're fortunate that we can start getting out there again. There's a lot of people who are still stuck in lockdown situations. Mm-Hmm. So feel for them. - So shout out to our brothers and sisters in Victoria. Mm. Who have all been hit pretty hard by this. Some people on the show might not know this person, but a good friend of ours, Brent Dry, who is uh, actually a really well-balanced individual and quite a happy person.
I can see that it's having an effect on people when I start seeing the cracks in people like Brent. So, very sad. - Yeah, it is. That's for sure. Mm. Um, I should probably just say, so the seminar, it's a canine nutrition seminar and it's a full day and I'll be talking about like the fundamentals of nutrition as it relates to our dogs. The role of nutrition in canine behavior, how to understand commercial pet food labels. Mm-Hmm. , the ins and outs of raw food feeding and allergies.
Allergies is always a popular topic. So we'll be touching on that as well. - Terrific. Now that we've got all the biz out of the way, what do you got for us today? - Today's topic was actually a request by one of my listeners of the show, Lauren Turner. Mm-Hmm. . So she's a trainer in the States. Yep. Hey Lauren. Hey Lauren. So she wanted to know more about fasting. Interesting - Topic.
Alright. Considering that it's something that's been mentioned in most ancient scripts throughout the dawn of time and something heavily practiced in populations all over the world, again since Adam was a boy. However, now in days of consumerism, it's more about buy everything. Eat everything. - Yeah. So we have sort of gone off track in terms of evolutionary approaches to eating, which we'll talk about today as we go through. Yeah. So today it's about fasting as it relates to people and pets.
Yep. With a focus on dogs. Mm-Hmm. to start with. - Um, so this is a people and pets one. - It's people and pets. Ah. Whenever I can, I'm gonna try and cover both within a show there'll be shows where it says one or the other, but today fasting comes up often on dog food forums. Yep. It can be quite heated. That's one of the reasons I wanna talk about it. Yep. Today for the dog side of it too. Yeah.
- Interesting. - Just to give an overview, so to start with, a lot of fasting terms are used interchangeably online and that's fine when it comes to fasting, but I thought I'd just quickly highlight the main types of fasting that people might see out there and try themselves. Mm-Hmm. . So the first one is what's called time restricted fastings. This is really popular at the moment with a lot of my clients as well. And this is where you eat within like a specific window of time.
So the main one out there is what's called the 16 eight mm-Hmm. time restricted fasting process. So that's where you will eat within an eight hour window and fast for 16 hours. So a lot of people, because of our lifestyles and our work will skew that eating window to the second half of the day. So they might eat between 12:00 PM and 8:00 PM or you know, 11:00 AM 7:00 PM whatever works for them. Mm-Hmm. other people, you know, there's a 1410, there's a 1212.
So there's no hard and fast rules, but the science shows that the main benefits of fast intend to kick in at around that 15 to 16 hour mark. Mm-Hmm. . But you can still get benefits and as we go through the show, you know, I'll talk about the benefits that you can get from doing sort of bigger windows of eating as well. - It's a difficult thing about being an adult, isn't it? Is that you can eat whenever you want in relation to people. So you can eat whenever you want.
There's no hand break or mentoring or governance on when you can eat. Like as when you're a child, your parents sort of say to you, that's enough. You can't eat anymore. But when you're a grown up, you can just say, I can eat whenever I want. . That's a problem that I have is that I just go, I'm allowed to eat whenever I want and I just go to the cupboard and get whatever I want out of it.
- Yeah. I often think our dogs are lucky in that, you know, we regulate what they eat and when they eat often I think, oh, I wish someone would just tell me like stop eating. Um, - Yeah. No food police is gonna tell me when I can and can't eat. Yeah. - On the time restricted fasting though, like it's really interesting, studies have shown that in terms of the cardiometabolic benefits Mm-Hmm.
. So they're things like insulin resistance type two diabetes, hypertension, or I should say cardiometabolic diseases. Mm-Hmm. skewing that eating window to the morning rather than the evening, which is what most people will do. Mm-Hmm. is actually more beneficial for reducing those conditions.
But what's fascinating, because a lot of people do fasting for weight loss, but there's, you know, we're gonna talk about the additional benefits beyond weight loss in the show today, but by skewing the eating window to the morning, they've found that that's helpful because they've discovered that nearly every gene in our body is affected by circadian rhythms. Right. So, you know, that's our natural diurnal process in the body, our sleep weight cycle.
Mm-Hmm. and they've discovered that, so for example, melatonin, which is our sleepy hormone Mm-Hmm. it gets released at night. Yep. And it goes all through the body, but the cells in our body have what's called melatonin receptors. Mm-Hmm. , our cells have lots of different types of receptors. Melatonin receptors is just one of them. So as melatonin, the hormone goes through the blood comes across a cell, sees the receptor binds to it, and that's what triggers the positive effect.
Yep. What they've found is that even the pancreas has like quite a large number of these receptors for melatonin on their cells and that stimulation of melatonin receptors on the pancreas actually suppresses insulin release. Now if that all sounds a bit convoluted, when we eat our bodies release insulin, it's just what it does. Yep. And the more carby and processed and sugary the food, the more insulin your body releases.
Mm-Hmm. . So if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, you know, in the back, in the hunter gatherer day, they're gonna be hunting, gathering in feasting mainly during daylight hours. Yep. So, and that's when the pancreas is primed to sort of respond to that food intake by releasing insulin.
Mm-Hmm. . But they're showing now that at night when we're supposed to be sleeping and melatonin is being produced, it actually suppresses that pancreas response, which may sort of indicate that eating late at night, particularly eating a lot of carb rich foods late at night Mm-Hmm. may not be in their best interest. Right. I don't know, I just find that fascinating. - It is fascinating. Yeah, absolutely.
I guess it makes sense though because if you look at the body's preparation during the nocturnal cycle to wind down and in the morning your body is, it's basically preparing the engine to start moving and um, getting around it makes sense that it's converting energy at a much more rapid rate in the morning and then in the evening it's trying to slow itself down and then you are trying to force more food in there and which it goes into, I guess it goes into storage mode. Right.
- I mean there's a lot of conflicting studies on weight gain, for example. Mm-Hmm. Whether people eat late at night or don't late at night. But I don't think it's the best time to be eating large amounts of food. But that's another podcast probably it. It - Probably is. - Yeah. So that's the time restricted fasting.
Then you've got the intermittent fasting, which, you know, the most commonly done approach is the, say the five two diet where you're eating normally for five days a week and on two days you're restricting your calories quite severely to say five or 600 calories. There's whole day fasting where someone might eat dinner one day and then not eat again until dinner the next day.
Mm-Hmm. , I've got a couple of clients that do that and we, I keep having this conversation with them because most people aren't eating a nutritionally replete diet to start with. Yep. And so if you think about it, if you're just eating one meal a day, chances are you're not getting everything you need. Mm-Hmm. in that one meal. So unless you're really strategic in planning your meals across a week, I think it's a recipe for disaster for nutritional deficiencies, just having one meal a day.
Yep. And then trying to get enough calories in too, because let's say you eat a day's worth of calories in one meal, that's a huge burden to your digestive system, which again has negative health consequences too. So pros and cons to everything. So nothing straightforward in the health world. - Well, extremities on both ends are still extremities. Yeah. - And the other thing with any of these fasting approaches, they've been shown to be effective for weight loss. There's no doubt about that.
But they're not significantly more effective than say just reducing calorie intake generally. Mm-Hmm. . And the risk with fasting is that it's been shown to increase what's called neurop Pepto wise. So it's one of our most potent appetite regulating hormones. Mm-Hmm. . So fasting does stimulate that, which means you, you're more likely to feel hungry when you're fasting again. I've got clients who swear that they're not hungry. Depends on the person. Yep. - Funny about that, isn't it?
That genetics play a part in how different people react differently? Yeah, - It's huge. Just like we always say, you know, it depends on the dog when it comes to training. Mm-Hmm. when health, it really does depend on the person. So these are quite broad discussions that we're having today. Yep. If people hear something that sort of triggers their interest, there's, you know, there's so much information online and studies that they can sort of delve into a bit more deeply if they want to.
Mm-Hmm. . So beyond weight loss, some of the other key benefits of fasting and I should say the benefits that we are gonna touch on today, they're just as applicable to our dogs. So, um, I'll go through these, but just think, you know, this is helping our dogs as well because even though dogs physiologically and biochemically are different, they're not so different to us.
Mm-Hmm. . And you know, a lot of studies will say that like animal models, particularly dog models are good predictors of human models when it comes to clinical trials. Right. So like we said, beyond weight loss, you've got improved insulin sensitivity and which can help to reverse type two diabetes. And that's actually really important because a lot of people may not even know that they've got any degree of insulin resistance.
And if it's left unchecked, you know, that's where they go to the doctor and suddenly they've got type two diabetes. Mm-Hmm. , which is completely reversible with diet and lifestyle. But some of the signs and symptoms of insulin resistance, you know, fatigue, extra weight gain, particularly around the middle, if you suddenly get patches of dark skin skin tags, you know, acne for women with polycystic ovarian syndrome, you know, they'll be all over the insulin resistance problem.
Fatty liver, really intense cravings like that real hangry Mm-Hmm. sort of effect. If you don't eat for women it could be hair loss, fluid retention, just trouble concentrating. So all of those signs and symptoms are quite vague and could be caused by a lot of different things. But insulin resistance is one of them. Right. Even if you don't care about any of that, again, coming back to weight loss, insulin is our fat storage hormone.
So while insulin is up all the time, you are not gonna be losing fat. Mm-Hmm. . And that's what happens. Like I said, when we eat triggers insulin, so if you are eating grazing all day, you've constantly got this elevated insulin level, which means you're really never going to, you're really never gonna get into that fat burning mode. Mm-Hmm. I have to say though, despite knowing all the ins and outs of the benefits of fasting, I just can't do it. So, - Yeah.
Well I'm not really a model of good eating choices or anything either, if I have to be, but you - Naturally tend to be okay with not eating for hours and hours at a time. Like you can go to a lunchtime and go, oh yeah, - Something. Yeah, that's not the problem. I can miss meals during the day and I think my main issue is I eat late into the night. Mm-Hmm. And you know, I'm a self-confessed stress eater, so if I'm occupied and busy, I feel like I've gotta be eating something at the same time.
So the more stressed I feel, the more cravings that I actually incur to actually wanna go and eat something. Yeah. So it's a vicious cycle. It's a negative feedback loop that I just seem not to be able to kick. - Yeah. I mean, emotional eating's huge for I'd say the majority of people. Hmm. But moving back on to some of the benefits. So one of the key benefits is that fasting promotes autophagy, which always makes me laugh that word because whenever I read it my mind goes, what's the word?
Autophagy. Okay. But when you read it, it's spelled like autophagy. Okay. It's pronounced autophagy. Mm-Hmm. . But so our body is constantly generating new cells and killing off old ones. Mm-Hmm. But this is also happening within the cell. So all the little structures and organelles within the cell are breaking down and forming new ones. So autophagy is just that natural sort of cellular housekeeping process.
Mm-Hmm. . So the body's cleaning out like all the debris outta the cell so you can get all the pretty much the crap out and get the good stuff and the nutrients in. And this is great for improving mitochondrial function 'cause you gotta think, you know, we can only feel as good as our cells are healthy. Yeah. Like they're the base unit of who we are. And if your mitochondrial health is suffering, then yeah, you will be fatigued. Mm-Hmm. You will feel just blah. So that's important.
And the other thing about autophagy is it increases macrophage activity. So macrophages are a type of white blood cell and so they go around the body and they destroy bacteria, viruses and just anything that shouldn't be there, like dead tissue worn out cells. And the way I like to think about macrophages whenever I'm reading the literature is remember back in the day like who had a Commodore 64 computer me and used to play Pac-Man. Yep. So that's a macrophage.
So whenever you read macrophage, just pitch a Pac-Man. Mm-Hmm. going around with his mouth open, just like swallowing up all the crap in our bodies and all the nasties. So that's - A horrible thought , - But it makes it interesting. It - Does. Yeah. - Like if you're gonna be in a scientific field, I think it's really like I find it really beneficial to sort of have all these little analogies of Yeah. What - Things are, yeah.
It's important especially when um, you're trying to make it relatable to an audience. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Funny enough. - Um, but this is so important that it was only in 2016 that a Japanese scientist won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering that autophagy is switched on by a nutrient deprivation. That was a pretty major thing. And that's where the benefits of fasting have sort of grown a lot since then. Fasting's great for reducing any of those cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Things like, you know, high cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure, it can reduce inflammation, it can improve mental clarity. Mm-Hmm. and reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disorders. And the way it does this, and I've spoken about this with dogs or I've written about it anyway, is that fasting increases what's called brain-derived neurotrophic factor. So it promotes new neurons. Mm-Hmm. and protects against like neuronal degeneration.
So that's really important I think I've written about in terms of phytonutrients for dogs. Mm-Hmm. helps to promote BDNF for dogs. - Where did you write this? That - Was in the IACP journal. - Ah, yes. - Yeah. Last season. - Good reason to be a member of the IACP. - Absolutely. Mm. Fasting increases growth hormone production. So that's central to lots of aspects of health. You know, our metabolism. Weight loss, again, increased muscle mass, increased bone strength.
Mm-Hmm. fasting can help with cancer prevention and increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Mm-Hmm. can slow aging, increase longevity. There's lots of studies about calorie restriction and fasting for anti-aging aspects. Yep. But one of the main ones that I love and I think is really relevant to us and our dogs is that it promotes detoxification. So, you know, when we are eating and digesting, that's like a real energy burden to the body to digest food.
So the more you eat sort of the bigger the burden. But when we fast, you know, all that energy can be put to use elsewhere in the body. So it can help with, you know, cellular repair and detoxification and regeneration and things like that. And if you think about it on a daily basis, just how many toxins we're exposed to it. You know, chemicals in the food we eat in the air, we breathe in the water, you know, there's just so much that we are bombarded with.
And if you think about our dogs, you know, flea treatments, tick treatments, worming treatments, - Vaccinations, - Vaccinations, poor quality food and all the nasty chemicals and additives and preservatives that are in that for our dogs. Mm-Hmm. And you gotta think too, our dogs are at ground level, so a lot of, or even mold, you know Yep. Mold toxicity. Mm-Hmm. Dogs raining through grass and just over carpets and you know, so they're getting exposure a lot.
So everything that goes into the body has to be processed by the liver. So all of these toxins that are coming in are being processed by the liver, but if there's a lot of them, the liver can become overburdened. Mm. But the body in all its amazing sort of design has a strategy. So if the, the liver does become overburdened through poor diet and all the environmental sort of onslaught of toxins, it actually sequesters or it sort of hides away all of the nasties in our fat cells.
Right. So fats and inert tissue. Mm-Hmm. . So muscles, metabolically active fats inert, it just sort of sits there and does not much, I mean, does some stuff but not much. So it's a really safe place to put these substances that are potentially a threat to life. Right. By view of the body. So what happens when you start burning fat? Yeah. So that's the thing. So once we fast sort of beyond 12 hours, we deplete our glycogen store. Mm-Hmm. . So that's the storage form of glucose.
So the body has to start looking for another source of energy and that's when it will start to break down fat for energy. Yep. Which is why fasting's great for weight loss. So those toxins start to get released back into the bloodstream and you know, to be processed by the liver, which is fine because that can reduce the body's overall toxic burden. Mm-Hmm. . But sort of something you need to be cautious of here. And for a healthy body, that process is fine to do. Yeah.
Okay. That's good. It's a reason why I'm massive on liver support, particularly for weight loss. I know you're always on your about liver support, liver, liver, liver. But the reason is it's most obvious when quite overweight people or obese people go on like a crazy strict, rapid sort of weight loss program. Mm-Hmm. And so they break down like a heap of fat really quickly. And so you get this, this massive wave of toxin release into the blood Mm-Hmm.
at a rate that is too much for the liver to sort of process and handle. Yep. And then, so within that first month, I'll often get clients or people come to me and they're like, oh, I should feel good because I'm losing a lot of weight. So it's like psychologically they're like, oh yeah, I'm, you know, I've lost weight, but they skin's breaking out.
Yep. They're getting headaches and migraines. Ah. That's the reason why they're fatigued and they just feel blah and it's sort of like a wall they hit at a certain point. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's why I generally tell people just take it slow. It takes so long generally for the weight to come on, just take your time, lose the weight slowly, it's your body's gonna handle the whole process a lot better. Yeah. So that's interesting. That's something to keep in mind. It is.
So who shouldn't fast? That's really important. It's not for everyone. Mm-Hmm. . So just because we are talking about the benefits today, this is just putting information out there doesn't mean you have to do it. Mm-Hmm. for yourself or your dog. Some of these are obvious, like pregnant breastfeeding women shouldn't fast children shouldn't fast anyone with a history of disordered eating because fasting can actually trigger binging Yep.
In people or they can go the other way and become even more obsessive and restrictive with their food intake. Mm-Hmm. people who are prone to gallstones. So again, I find this really fascinating. You know, when we fast, it decreases the activity of the gallbladder. So people may not know our liver produces bile. Mm-Hmm. and bile gets stored in the gallbladder, which is just like a sack, a sack of fluid. Yep. Sack of bile and other stuff. But we'll just say bile.
And every time we eat particularly food with fat Mm-Hmm that triggers the gallbladder to release a little bit of bowel into the system to help break down the fat and excrete it from the body. Right. Again, if someone goes on a fad rapid sort of extreme low fat diet Yep. You know, suddenly their gallbladder's got nothing to do. Like it doesn't have to release bile very often because they're like completely cut all fat outta their diet.
Mm-Hmm. . So it sits there and then it just, the bile in the gallbladder sort of thickens and gets sludgy and then the cholesterol in the bile concentrates and then they end up with gallstones. Right. So they get to the end of their fad, extreme low fat diet and then they binge on, you know, they've lost all their weight and they're like, oh, I deserve a binge meal. So they binge on really fatty foods and then they're in hospital with gallbladder attack from gallstones.
Right. So it's not that it's gonna happen that way, but people who do extreme low fat diets are much more prone to gallstones because of that mechanism of action. Well - There you go. I just learned something myself because I always wondered where and how gallstones, uh, produced in the body. And now I know - That's just one way. There are other ways that gallstones can be produced. Mm-Hmm. . But that's sort of one that's most relevant to people with diet, right.
Uh, dietary aspects. And so fasting does that too. If you fast, you know, through really extended periods of time, the 16 eight windows of fasting I doubt are gonna have a problem unless you're already predisposed to gallstones. Mm. So I guess that's my point. If you're prone to them, just be careful for how long you do fast for. Mm-Hmm. , people who are already malnourished or underweight don't recommend it.
And people who are doing like really high intensity interval training, if they're really restricting their window of eating, they may just not be getting enough calories and nutrients in to support what their body needs. Mm-Hmm. for muscle growth and overall health, you know, diabetics or anyone with preexisting conditions. Like it's not that they can't do it, but do it under the care of your gp or if your dog's got preexisting health conditions under the care of your vet and just go slower.
Yep. Like I said, instead of doing 16 eight, you might start with 12. 12. Yep. - You're a huge advocate for blood testing as well, aren't you? - I am. And so for a lot of reasons, but in relation to fasting, so if someone had blood glucose irregularities or diabetes, you know, you would wanna be monitoring your blood glucose levels regularly Yep. To ensure safety. You don't wanna go into like a hypoglycemic state. Mm-Hmm. , there's lots of other chronic conditions that probably shouldn't fast.
But again, talk to your doctor if you think that might relate to you. Mm-Hmm. , what I found fascinating reading up lately about fasting is a lot of the benefits have been shown for men, but not for women. Right. And I find that, again, all these little bits of information I just find fascinating. So there was a study that looked at alternate day fasting and after three weeks there was an unfavorable effect in women on blood glucose. So their blood glucose levels went up. Mm-Hmm.
. And they didn't get an improvement in their insulin sensitivity, which was completely the opposite to the men in the study over that three week period. And in another study they did a two day fast and in women it shifted them into a sympathetic dominant state for their nervous system. So that's our flight or fight response. Mm-Hmm.
. And in men, it shifted them like a two day fast shifted to them into a parasympathetic dominant state, which is our rest or digest state and where we should be most of the time. But with the lifestyles that we lead, most of us are too often in that sort of sympathetic dominant state. Mm-Hmm. sort of that wired just always on, just always running on adrenaline. So we don't wanna be that, but fascinating that fasting would push meaning in one direction and women in the other.
And the fact that women's bodies are much more sensitive to metabolic distress and any sort of perceived state of starvation, it sort of makes sense because, you know, from a reproductive sense, because why would a female body wanna reproduce if it feels like its survival is being threatened by calorie restriction? Wow. It makes sense.
So women with extreme fasting can affect ovulation, their menstruation, their fertility, their sleep, and their mood a lot more than, well men don't have a lot of those things, you know, so it does have a, a much bigger impact on women. Mm-Hmm. . So some studies actually say women probably shouldn't fast for more than 14 hours a day, but again, depends on the woman in question.
Yep. And if you, you know, if you are thinking of studying fasting, you might just do every second day or every third day. So just something a bit more gentle to sort of see how your body responds to it. Mm-Hmm. one of the other sort of types of people that probably wouldn't do well on fasting, if you are really stressed, if your life is just chaotic and you are running on adrenaline, fasting can sort of be like throwing fuel on the fire because it is a perceived state of stress to the body.
Like not getting any food which can increase cortisol levels, which is our stress hormone. Mm-Hmm. So just something else to be mindful of - That makes sense. It - Does. Mm-Hmm. Okay. So let's talk about dogs. Right. On the forums, like people get so passionate and so heated about fasting dogs because a - Lot of anything really Well - Yeah. Anything. Yeah. But you know, because they see it as sort of cruel. But you've gotta remember therapeutic fasting, it's not starvation.
So your dog is still getting all the nutrients they need to support all their vital tissues and organs and muscle mass. On the other days of the week, water should always be available. Yep. Whether it's us or our dogs, you know, you should always be well hydrated. That's just a given. So fasting does not mean in this context water restriction. Hmm. - It's an interesting topic, this the emotional content behind fasting and, and the state of affair of how a dog should be and how it should look.
Because ever since I've got into the industry, which has been for about 30 years now, more so now an obese dog is an indicator of love. Personally, I feel that it's another form of abuse. - Oh, absolutely. And that's the thing, I think the percentage of overweight and obese dogs is matching the human population. As our lifestyle and diet deteriorates, we automatically sort of put that onto our dogs as well. And yeah, it's people's perception of their dog.
It's the same with people. Like overweight is the new norm. Mm-Hmm. So if you are a normal low body fat percentage, people will often accuse you of being too skinny or you know, oh, your dog's too skinny when actually they're quite healthy. - Well, interestingly enough, when human intervention isn't around, like in the wild or street dogs or anything like that, in any country, usually see that the dogs are quite lean and muscular. Mm-Hmm. Where there's been no human intervention.
But as, as soon as you domesticate the dog, not always, because there are a lot of people that I know who, you know, especially with sporting type of dogs as well, they're quite disciplined about how the dogs look and react. And they're more interested in raising an athlete than a couch potato. And I'm not trying to offend anyone, you know, like, I mean I know that some people do things until they learn to do it better. That's the old Mayo angel. Yeah. I think her name is.
It's do the best you can until you know better. And when you know better do better. - Yeah. And the thing is too, a lot of dogs aren't really high carb sort of kibble diets. Mm-Hmm. Which trigger like hyperglycemia, which is like high blood glucose, which you know, triggers insulin release. Mm-Hmm. But that hypoglycemic state can, in terms of health, can lead to impaired wound healing, neuronal degeneration, increased production of inflammatory cytokines.
So inflammatory molecules in the body and for sick dogs who are hospitalized hyperglycemia can lead to poorer clinical outcomes. You know, which is what you don't, you don't want that if you dog's already struggling with something. Something else that I only, unfortunately only discovered recently in the last month is, and it's a rat study, but we can, it's relevant.
Yeah. It's still relevant to consider, it's still food for thought is that studies have shown that fasting can promote recovery after spinal cord injury. Oh yeah. So I read that, I'm like, oh ladybug, I was so focused on getting the nutrition into her, like for her body to heal and repair that. It never occurred to me that fasting to some extent might actually be beneficial as well. So I've sort of missed the boat on that for her. Mm-Hmm.
. But something to keep in mind, studies have also shown that general calorie restriction in dogs can extend lifespan. Mm-Hmm. . So they looked at 48 Labrador retrievers and by restricting their food intake by 25%, they lived on average about two years longer. So the on average 13 years versus 11 years. So I mean getting a couple of extra years out of, you know, your dog's time. Mm-Hmm. , I think that's significant.
So better to Yeah. Slightly underfeed your dog than overfeed your dog and have a fat dog that you think you love more because it's fat. Mm-Hmm. And I know Glen, you are familiar with this story, but I wanna share it with our listeners and that's about Oscar Mm-Hmm. - So I've heard Rodney Habib talk about this before.
- So the reason I wanna share the story about Oscar is just to help pet parents understand that if you, and we're gonna talk about fasting strategies for dogs in a sec, but having your dog miss a meal - Is not the end of the world. It - Is not harmful at all.
Yeah. And to give you an extreme example, back in the day when they could do studies that would no longer have any chance of passing, like the ethics committee, they looked at how long this dog could live for or could go on for without eating. So it was done in 1912 and I actually have the full paper from 1912, so it's interesting read. So Oscar was a scotch colie and they gave Oscar just water. And during this time they measured creatine kinase and blood uan nitrogen.
So they're markers of muscle breakdown. Mm-Hmm. . So, you know, when he goes into starvation mode, those markers would increase and then they'd know to stop the experiment because of the damage to his body. Right. So the first time they did the experiment with Oscar, they stopped it after 45 days.
Mm-Hmm. . And then they sent Oscar home to his farm and then a year later they brought him back and they expected a similar sort of timeframe, like that 30 to 45 day mark until his body started to break down. - And it's just water. Right? Just - Water. Yep. So that's all they're giving him. - Was there any nutrient in the water or was it, - I don't think so. I'd have to go back and look at the study, but we'll just say water for today's conversation.
Yep. But the second time round, they went past that 45 days and the urea didn't even start to rise until day 103. So Oscar hasn't eaten any food for 103 days and even sort of at a hundred plus days, he could still like jump over a three foot fence to get into his kennel. So his body had actually really adapted to that state of starvation. And I mean that could easily go into a whole conversation about ketogenic diets for dogs and things like that.
Mm-Hmm. So that's amazing. And I think it was after 117 days they stopped the experiment. Oscar survived and recovered and was great, but he did, I mean this is extreme. He went from 26.3 kilos to 9.7 kilos. Mm-Hmm. . So that's a lot of weight loss. That's - A lot of weight loss. - But again, the whole point of that little story is if your dog doesn't eat for a day, it's fine. - That's just crazy, isn't it?
The first time I heard that, I just thought, how could you even think about doing something like that as a study? And you're right, it is cruel. Well it's horrible to be honest. Yeah. And as you pointed out before, as far as ethics would go in this day and age, there was no way in any way, shape or form unless it was illegally done. Mm-Hmm. That you would even consider doing things like that.
But to be honest, there's a lot of animals in particular their own personal suffering that we've gained a lot of medical and scientific knowledge through. So you know, their sacrifice should never be in vain. - That's right. Although, having said all that, it's funny because ladybug was a bit off on the weekend. Yeah. And um, so I'm like, ah, so I didn't give her dinner Sunday night and in my mind she had breakfast that morning, but I just didn't give her dinner.
But even like me, I'm like, oh my poor baby. Yeah. She hasn't had dinner, so I understand, you know, the emotional aspects, - But she didn't want it either. - Yeah. She was really off. We don't know why - She just had a bad day, - Bad day. Mm-Hmm. So like people, there are certain dogs that shouldn't fast. Really, it's only for healthy adult dogs. Puppies should never be fasted. I mean, they might self fast and not eat for a meal or two or a day or two mm-Hmm.
, which is fine. But if it goes for more than a couple of days, definitely go to your vet. - Especially there's vomiting and diarrhea involved. Oh, - Absolutely. And particularly small breed puppies because they've got such fast metabolisms, they're really prone to hypo. So hypoglycemia, so low blood glucose. Mm-Hmm. , which can be fatal pretty quickly. Older dogs probably shouldn't fast pregnant lactating bitches obviously, you know, they've got really increased energy requirements.
Mm-Hmm. dogs on any kind of medication because whether you take a drug with food or without food can have a big impact on the pharmacokinetics of that drug. So the way it's absorbed and metabolized and excreted. So it can change, you know, whether your dog gets too much or too little of a drug. Mm. - It's good to know. And - Like everything we have to, to monitor our dogs and be prepared to stop or change what we're doing based on what we're seeing in our dogs.
So some dogs might become more temperamental, it might trigger some behavioral issues that you don't wanna see. Some dogs, it might trigger loose stools, it might trigger vomiting. You just don't know. So don't just do something because someone else is doing it without paying attention to how it's impacting. - I guess what you're saying is consider speaking with a canine health professional or even human health professional before you just leap into it and have a crack at it.
- Yeah. Again, if you are a healthy, robust person and your dog's a healthy, robust dog, you know, give it a go. Yeah. But if there's anything else going on, you do need to be careful, but - Research at first. Right. Like look into the tactics of how to do it. Right. - Yes. Again, there's no rules. Like there's no right or wrong way to do this. Like the old school approach was one day a week. Yep. That's sort of what we grew up with. You know, you just don't feed your dogs one day a week.
Mm-Hmm. . But if you are feeding your dogs twice a day, for example, you might just start by once a month. Mm. Taking away one meal a day. I mean, that's nothing, but it's the start. Mm-Hmm. , it's a start that makes you feel good about it and you know, your dog's not gonna notice much and then you might either increase that to once a week ultimately, or you might start to take away both meals. Or if you're feeding your dog once a day, you know, you might take away that one meal once a month.
Yep. And then sort of increase the frequency, do what works for you and your dog. Mm-Hmm. But like I said, you still need to ensure your dog's getting all the nutrients and the energy. So you might slightly increase the food intake on the other days if you're fasting like a full one day a week. Yep. You'd probably wanna feed a little bit more on the other days. Mm-Hmm. to make sure your dog doesn't lose condition. Yep.
- So interesting. As we've said before, you know, at the start of the show, like this has been proven throughout the history of human beings that most texts from old days indicate that fasting has been a part of their rituals. Mm. - Yeah. So many cultures and religions Yep. Incorporate fasting - Absolutely. All over the globe. Yeah. - And some dogs, you know, will naturally, - I wonder where they learn that from without the access to science and the interweb like we've got now - .
I know we rely so heavily on it. - Yeah. Old day scholars, they must have known something. - Yeah. I think they were wise. Mm-Hmm. just absolutely blows my mind what people back then could come up with without the technology and the resources that we have access to. Yeah. Today - And fundamentally we've somehow gained that knowledge throughout the eons of ages as well. Yeah. Yeah. - Back to dogs. Mm-Hmm. You know, some people panic if their dog doesn't wanna eat.
Yep. Don't force your dog to eat. Like if your dog doesn't want breakfast one day, like don't force it to eat breakfast. Like it's telling you eat, you know, it's body's probably telling it it doesn't want food right now, so that's fine. You know, let things like that go, as we've discussed, there are lots of amazing health benefits too, fasting for both us and our dogs. Mm-Hmm. . But you know, there's no right or wrong way to go about it.
So just, you know, if you're gonna look into it, just start slow, start small and sort of, you know, build it up from there. Yep. But again, every, I feel like every podcast they come back to, everyone wants like a fad. I feel like, you know, they just wanna do the latest dietary restriction. Yeah.
- That's marketing. - Yeah. But before you stress your body out with suddenly restricting, like let's say you're eating five meals a day, you're just grazing, you know, three meals, couple of snacks, and suddenly you go, well I'm only gonna eat within like a six to eight hour window now on, I mean, that's a huge shock to the system. Mm-Hmm. . But rather than do that, I always say like, start with the basics. If your diet isn't optimal, start by cleaning up your diet.
Yep. Like eat six times a day, but make better choices in those meals. Approaching it that way is gonna have a much bigger impact long-term on our health. And when it comes to our dogs, it's the same thing. So rather than, you know, you may not go into fasting straightaway with your dog, you might just look at their diet and try and have a better quality diet for them in the the first instance. Okay. I think that's a much better approach.
So don't freak out, you don't have to fast, but do look at your diet and your dog's diet and see where you can make improvements. Mm-Hmm. , because that's gonna have a much bigger difference to your health. - I guess that's a good place to leave it. Mm. If people need to find you for more information on fasting, - If you wanna get in contact with me, you can email me at hello at natural health and nutrition.com au. Mm-Hmm. , you can jump onto my business Facebook page,
which is Natural Health and Nutrition. Yep. - Which occasionally put the odd article up on health and nutrition. - Yeah. I tend to put more human articles on that page. And then there's my Natural Health for People and Pets Facebook page to support this podcast. So any questions in relation to fasting or anything else you wanna know? Yep. Go to the Natural Health for People and Pets Facebook page and then we can have a conversation there. Terrific.
- Okay, well let's leave it there. Goodbye everyone. - Bye.