Normally when people think of fasting they think about religion, weight loss or a political protest. And when you ask why they do it the answers vary from discipline, self-restraint or control. These are good initial answers, but once it is no longer a challenge for you, why do you continue? Hopefully, by the end of this, it will help with deeper or less common reasons. If that is your purpose.
The reality is that many people fast for many different reasons. In the past, many cultures performed this for various health as well as spiritual reasons. There are many types of fasting:

* Intermittent – during a certain time frame. Typically 12 -18 hours. Sometimes up to 24 hours
* Dry- no food or water
* Liquid – no food
* Partial – restricting certain types of food

Partial fasts are commonly used in the health area to determine food allergies and sensitivities. Literally, what an allergy or sensitivity is, is your immune system fighting a specific food (or substance in the food) that you are eating. Why would your body do this? This particular food could have been introduced to a part of your body where food is not supposed to be, due to this, your body now identifies it as a threat. This happens a lot with people who have leaky gut, IBS or other digestive issues. It could also be the amount of chemicals in the food that keeps your body from identifying it as food. My theory is, that is the problem with pollen right now and why so many people who were never allergic are now having crazy sinus issues. As of now, it is just a theory. These partial fasts can range from a couple weeks to months or years. The benefit is an improved digestive tract or immune system.
Dry and liquid intermittent fasts are used all the time in the medical industry when you need to have some sort of blood work or any other test done on the body. These fasts can be from 12 hours to a couple of days.  Now, in other areas such as alternative medicine, holistic health and traditional lifestyles/Ancestral diet. These fasts have caught on like wildfire! So much so, that there is a lot of money and research being poured into this area to find out all of its affects on the body. Right now, if you look up the benefits of intermittent fasting it will tell you that it is great for detoxification or weight loss, but it goes so much deeper than that.  The data states that this type of fasting can:

* Change the function of cells, genes and hormones
* Help you lose weight and belly fat
* Reduce insulin resistance, lowering your risk of Type 2 diabetes
* Reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in the body
* Improve the cardiovascular system
* Prompts the cellular repair Processes
* Assists in preventing cancer and Alzheimer’s (Gunnar, 2017)

So how does it do this? Cell functions in the body change on a regular basis depending on the demands needed by the body. We know this because they malfunction due our inability to meet its demands. For example, you choose to now ride your bike to work instead of driving or catch the bus. Maybe You are eating less meals or possibly more.  Do to you withdrawing the amount of food that you eat. Naturally, your insulin levels will drop encouraging your body to burn reserved energy storage. This is how it helps with weight loss and diabetes. In human studies on intermittent fasting, fasting blood sugar has been reduced by 3-6%, while fasting insulin has been reduced by 20-31% (Barnosy, Hoddy, 2014). This was achieved with alternate day fasting, 3 out of the 7 days a week they fasted, no other food restrictions were made. Which another study did not turn out beneficial for women. I will touch on why this is later on in this discussion.
The hormone receptors and transmitters resets during fasting. This is part of your endocrine system. So when we think of all the endocrine type of diseases out ...