The Starvation Chronicles: Prologue

Starting Friday, May 19, I’ll be subjecting myself to a five day starvation diet, in an attempt to beat back the disease that is slowly but surely consuming me. In effect, I’ll be reducing my consumption of food to near starvation levels in order to stop my illness’s consumption of my bodily functions. Yes, I’ll be crossing the junction of function consumption.

As I’ve talked about before on these pages, I work closely with a naturopathic doctor who is employed at my MS clinic. She's is one of the sharpest people I’ve ever met, and is a heckuva nice person to boot.

She recently approached me with a rather radical idea, but one based on sound scientific research and her own clinical experiences – asking if I would be willing to try a Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), in which caloric intake is dramatically reduced for five days. I was already acquainted with research which demonstrated that such a diet had increased the lifespans of laboratory animals as much as 25%, and that it had the potential to positively impact chronic illnesses and even cancers as well. When my naturopath told me that she had seen some rather startling results in one of the first few MS patients she had convinced to try this diet, I was all in.

The diet is designed and marketed by a company called Prolon (click here), which supplies five days’ worth of plant-based foods that provide nourishment while tricking the body into thinking that no food is being consumed. Thus, the name Fasting Mimicking Diet. During the diet, food consumption is limited to specially formulated vegetable broths, nutritional bars, herbal teas, and snacks (such as a few olives). Each day’s “meals” come in their own individual box, filled with packets of that day's allotted foodstuffs.

The first day of the diet caloric intake is reduced to 1100 calories, and during the remaining four days this is further reduced to 800 calories per day. On day six regular foods are gradually reintroduced, starting with fruits, rice, pasta and other easy to digest items. For the rest of the month a regular diet can be resumed. Dr. Bates (my naturopath) would prefer me to try to stick as much as possible to a Mediterranean diet (low-fat, with lots of fish and veggies).

In scientific studies, the FMD diet has been shown to promote and maintain healthy levels of a variety of inflammatory and regenerative markers. In an animal model of MS, FMD reduced inflammation, suppressed autoimmunity, and promoted the regeneration of damaged nervous system tissues (click here). The diet appears to stimulate the body’s own stem cells. While all this sounds terrific, what really sold me was Dr. Bates telling me that she had seen verifiable improvements in the mobility of one of the first patients who had agreed to give the diet a go.

I figure that if worst comes to worst and I don’t get any disease benefit from this experiment, I'll lose a few pounds (I’m developing the physique of an elephant seal) and the diet will allow my body to detox. In addition, it’ll be kind of fun to take on the challenge (he says with a full belly). Besides, this will give me the perfect excuse to lay around and binge watch some cheesy 60s and 70s horror flicks (queue up “Gore Gore Girls”). For the sake of my wife, I think I’ll steer clear of any films having to do with cannibalism. I'd hate to have Karen wake up to find that she's missing a finger or two. I wonder how many calories there are in a finger? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "finger food".

So, I expect that over the next five days I just might experience a few pangs of hunger here and there. I might even get Jewish VD (Veak and Dizzy, said with a Yiddish accent). I’ll report back at the end of every day to tell you guys how it’s going, as long as I have the strength to guide my wheelchair to the computer and put on my voice recognition headset. Of course, if I do experience any benefit, it won’t be for several months, but I’ll keep y’all apprised of all such developments (hey, I managed to affect Yiddish and southern accents all in the space of four sentences!). I plan on doing the diet for at least two or three consecutive months.

Wish me luck…