Can skipping meals help your brain stay young?
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Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
As we get older, our brain makes less of a helpful chemical called BDNF, which keeps our memory and learning strong. Skipping meals sometimes (intermittent fasting) has been shown to boost this chemical in animals and help their brains work better. But we don't know yet if it does the same in people.
Practical Takeaways
If you already practice intermittent fasting, you may be supporting brain health—but don’t start it solely for cognitive benefits.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
As we get older, our brain makes less of a helpful chemical called BDNF, which keeps our memory and learning strong. Skipping meals sometimes (intermittent fasting) has been shown to boost this chemical in animals and help their brains work better. But we don't know yet if it does the same in people.
Practical Takeaways
If you already practice intermittent fasting, you may be supporting brain health—but don’t start it solely for cognitive benefits.
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Claims (5)
Sometimes skipping meals might help animals live longer and stay healthier by triggering a mild stress response in their cells.
A protein in the brain called BDNF plays a big role in how well we think, learn, and remember things.
We don’t know yet if skipping meals sometimes helps human brains work better — we need more studies to find out.
As people get older, their brain makes less of a helpful protein called BDNF, which can make it harder to remember things and learn new stuff, and may raise the chance of dementia.
In mice and rats, eating only at certain times of day (like skipping meals sometimes) seems to boost a brain protein that helps with memory and thinking.