A doctor and nutrition researcher warns of the health risks of prolonged fasting. Short and long term risks.
While naturopath Éric Gandon was indicted on Thursday and remanded in custody after the death of a woman during a “water cure” course, a doctor and scientist warns of the high health risks of these long fasts.
“The risk is to get sick”, denounces for BFMTV.com Cécile Bétry, doctor specializing in endocrinology and lecturer at the University of Grenoble Alpes.
Less than 300 kcal per day
The principle of these “internships” or “cures”: a fast based on water, herbal teas and sometimes juices, broths and soups. But in very light doses: no more than 300 kcal per day. A food restriction often associated with physical activity: some stays indeed offer fasting while hiking ten kilometers a day.
The problem, points out Cécile Bétry, is that prolonged fasting forces the body to adapt by reducing its metabolism:
“It’s as if he was going into hibernation”, specifies this hospital practitioner. “He will therefore start his stocks, in particular of vitamins, phosphorus or even potassium, and all the more if he is forced to exercise physically.”
This can present considerable risks. She takes the example of vitamin B1.
“We have an average of two weeks of stock. As the body will draw on its reserves, the needs will be significantly increased. However, a deficiency in B1 can lead to potentially serious and irreversible complications with confusion, neurological or ocular disorders and paralysis. .”
As for a potassium deficiency, “the risk is cardiac arrest”, she adds. Complications that can also occur well after fasting. Éric Gandon is also the subject of another complaint for the death of a man in his sixties who had participated in an internship the previous month when he presented with terminal cancer.
“You start your health capital”
If the organizers of these courses and the fasters themselves praise and congratulate themselves on weight loss, it would be short-term, illusory and not without risk, points out Cécile Bétry again.
“The body is made in such a way that during a rapid weight loss, it will do everything to regain these lost pounds as soon as food is resumed.”
In addition, this researcher specializing in weight loss diets explains that prolonged fasting forces the body to produce energy. Ketone bodies, a kind of compensatory energy for carbohydrates that are not provided by food and which have the particular effect of reducing the feeling of hunger. “As the appetite decreases, you can imagine from the second day that everything is fine. But this is not the case.”
Because if the body must draw on fatty tissue to produce these ketone bodies, it also starts muscle mass. “It may not seem like a big deal at 30. But with multiple episodes of prolonged fasting that each time reduce your muscle mass, not to mention the fact that muscle inevitably declines with age, you are entering into the health capital of your future, when you’re 60 or 70.”
For Cécile Bétry, there is no scientific or medical justification to promote prolonged fasting, just like short-term fasting. “Fasting a day or two presents no major complication but no benefit either, except to take the risk of starting again, and this time a little longer.”
In a note on fasting for preventive or therapeutic purposes produced with Inserm, the Ministry of Health recalls that “any significant fast, whether complete or partial (with daily caloric intake of less than 300 kcal), should only be carried out within a medical structure to avoid the occurrence of side effects. serious adverse events”.
“Regeneration” and “purification”?
Some of these organizers of one, two or three week fasts promise “deep regeneration”, “purification” and “complete cleansing”.
“The idea of purifying your body, in terms of health or medicine, does not mean anything”, slice Cécile Bétry. And it is even the reverse that occurs.
“By fasting, the body taps into muscle and fatty tissue. This releases all the pollutants that were stored there into the bloodstream. So you end up with more toxins in your body.”
Some organizers also boast of an “improvement of symptoms linked to certain pathologies” and assure that this type of fasting is “effective” to “relieve” “cirrhosis, liver cancer, tumors”.
“No, it’s extremely serious to say that”, worries Cécile Bétry, the nutrition researcher. “It’s not based on anything scientific or medical.” And adds, in the case of certain diseases, that a loss of weight would on the contrary only aggravate the pathology and start the chances of survival of the patient.
“Someone who suffers from cancer or diabetes already has an altered organism due to the disease. Fasting is making yourself a little more sick. Fasting is a major stress for the organism. “
The Inrae nutrition, physical activity and cancer research network, who has carried out an expertise on the subject, also concluded that there is “no evidence in humans of a protective effect of fasting and restrictive diets in primary prevention or during illness”.
“Abuse of weakness” and “sectarian excesses”
Christian Gravel, the president of the Interministerial Mission for vigilance and the fight against sectarian aberrations (Miviludes), denounces on BFMTV the risk of “therapeutic and sectarian aberrations” and “abuse of weakness”, in particular with people who are already suffering health problems, sometimes serious.
“We are confronted with a public that is already vulnerable (…) which constitutes an ideal base for professionals of the mental influence, who use the circumstances and sell them miracle recipes which can result in tragedies”.
The president of Miviludes claims to record “a growing number” of abuses related to naturopathy. “Not all naturopaths are delinquents or sectarian predators but unfortunately far too many are.”
“They are not only charlatans but criminals”, insists Christian Gravel, of Miviludes.
Naturopath Éric Gandon is being prosecuted for manslaughter, abuse of weakness, endangering the lives of others and illegal exercise of the professions of doctor and pharmacist.
