Few diets have generated as much buzz as intermittent fasting, a way of eating that involves abstaining from food consumption on a regular schedule. Touted as about when you eat rather than what, it's gained great popularity as a means of weight loss. But its value beyond losing weight may be its promise of a host of other benefits — better heart health, improved cognitive function, blood sugar control, reduced inflammation, to name a few. Can not eating over fixed blocks of time really effect such wholesale improvements? In today's episode, we learn about the metabolic science of intermittent fasting and what it means for your body.

Hosts: Zach Moore, Todd Ackerman (interviewer)

Expert: Dr. Philip Horner, Neuroscientist

Notable topics covered:

• Intermittent fasting: Is it really just a form of caloric restriction?
• The benefits of burning ketones (fats) instead of glucose (sugars)
• The changes that occur in your brain and throughout your body when you fast
• Spinal cord regeneration: The intermittent fasting research that got neuroscientists interested
• The evidence that intermittent fasting improves growth and repair states in multiple tissue types
• 16/8, eat-stop-eat, 5/2: The primary types of intermittent fasting
• Contrary to the hype, the quality of what you eat when fasting matters
• Tips for making intermittent fasting successful
• Who shouldn't take on intermittent fasting
• How intermittent fasting appears to improve gut bacteria

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