In the news
Wake yourself up at night. Take an ice cold shower. Sitting at an empty breakfast table. Those apparent horrors would have a positive effect on your immune system, according to proponents of intermittent living. Is that right?
Factcheck
With intermittent living you regularly expose your body to stress situations, for example by not drinking, taking cold showers, going to the sauna or exercising intensively. This would allow your body to better arm itself against cancer, heart problems and diabetes, for example. However, there is no scientific evidence that intermittent living improves your immune system.
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What do we know about this?
Wat is intermittent living?
Intermittent living is in line with intermittent fastingbut there are some differences:
- While with intermittent fasting you only change your eating habits, with intermittent living you take it both your eating and lifestyle habits On.
- According to proponents of intermittent living short-lived stimuli from cold, heat, thirst, hunger or movement your body alert.
- Because of that kind of short-lived incentives deliberately provokecause you a stress response in your body.
- As a result, the immunity rise from your bodymaking you less susceptible to inflammation and disease.
- However, there is no effect if you do this every day, because your body gets used to it.
Research on intermittent living
Dutch scientists investigated whether intermittent living can have a positive effect on your health (1):
- In a review article, the researchers describe that intermittent living has beneficial effects on your immune system, your metabolism and the behavior of your body.
- As a result, you would have chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease be able to prevent.
- You would regularly take on challenges to protect against the harmful effects of inflammations. In addition, it would aging of your body brake.
- To demonstrate the usefulness of intermittent living, the researchers used existing studies:
- One of those studies showed that men who regularly sauna to take, fewer heart problems develop (2).
- That would be because a sauna visit regularly stress reactions causes in your body, thus boosting your immunity.
Bron
- (1) Pruimboom L, Muskiet FAJ. Intermittent living; the use of ancient challenges as a vaccine against the deleterious effects of modern life – A hypothesis. Med Hypotheses. 2018 Nov;120:28-42.
- (2) Laukkanen T, Khan H, Zaccardi F, et al. Association between sauna bathing and fatal cardiovascular and all-cause mortality events. JAMA Intern Med. 2015 Apr;175(4):542-8.
How should you interpret this news?
It stays unclear whether regular stress stimuli can have a healing effect on your body:
- The study only examined whether intermittent living could work.
- The scientists have implications of intermittent living, however not tested at subjects.
- So the study is possible not demonstrate that intermittent living improves your health.
- One of the researchers is a supporter of it paleo diet:
- We took a closer look at that diet earlier. We then decided that the paleo diet was too one-sided is, making you nutritional deficiencies could get.
- The same researcher was nominated in 2013 for the Meester Kackadoris Prize of the Dutch Association against Quackery, an unrespectable nomination (3).
- He is also known for promoting low carbohydrate diets (4).
Conclusion
With intermittent living you regularly expose your body to stress situations, for example by not drinking, taking cold showers, going to the sauna or exercising intensively. This would allow your body to better arm itself against cancer, heart problems and diabetes, for example. However, there is no scientific evidence that intermittent living improves your immune system.