Psychological Response During Long-Term Low Metabolism Experiment

摘要

Fasting is a widespread of diet control method and has been increasingly used in weight loss and the treatment of diseases. However, it remains unclear whether subject sensations and cognitive abilities are affected during fasting. Previous research has compared the physiological response before and after short-term fasting, but few studies have tracked the process of psychological responses during prolonged fasting. Thus, we tested whether prolonged fasting affects subject sensations, and cognitive performance,in 13 healthy volunteers over 22-days experiments under the medical supervision (involved 3-days baseline, 10 days total solid-food fasting, 4 days calorie restriction and 5-days recovery period). Across six time points during 22-days, we found an " ∩ " curve in negative mood states and sleepiness and a " ∪ " shaped curve in vigor and alertness, the inflection points of subject sensations to fasting was presented in the middle of complete fasting period. Unlike subjective feelings to fasting, there were no significant changes in basic cognitive ability over the 22-days experiment, making an implication of a maintenance in basic brain cognitive function. The results provide an insight for precise medical guideline of comfortable prolonged fasting and countermeasures of some emergent fasting.