What’s the News: Scientists found that periodic fasting may decrease the risk of coronary artery disease and diabetes, and also causes significant changes in heart-disease risk factors like cholesterol, blood-sugar, and triglyceride levels, which hadn’t been linked to fasting before. “We’ve shown it is not a chance finding. Fasting is not just an indicator for other healthy lifestyles,” says lead researcher Benjamin Horne of the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute. “It is actually the fasting that is working to reduce the risk of disease.”

How the Heck:

In the first recent study on fasting and heart disease, the researchers surveyed people in Salt Lake City, where a majority of citizens are Mormons and fast once a month for 24 hours. They discovered that the people who answered “yes” when questioned whether they abstain from food and drink for an extended time had a lower rate of coronary disease and diabetes.
In the second study, scientists monitored 230 people ...