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Ten days of complete fasting affected subjective sensations but not cognitive abilities in healthy adults

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Abstract

Purpose

People may be unable to obtain anything edible for days under some circumstances, but they must maintain their calmness and cognition to navigate solutions. Our aim was to study changes in subjective sensations and cognition in healthy adults during a 10-day complete fasting experiment.

Methods

Thirteen healthy male volunteers voluntarily participated in the 22-day experiment comprising 4 phases: 3 days of baseline consumption, 10 days of complete fasting (only water ad libitum), 4 days of calorie restriction, and a 5-day recovery period. The volunteers’ subjective sensations, cognitive performance, and serum energy substances were measured at 6 time points.

Results

Across the 6 time points, the trajectories of subjective sensations in response to fasting were “U”- or “ ∩ ”-shaped curves instead of progressive discomfort or mood enhancement. A significant fasting time effect was found on depression-dejection (baseline: 16.85 ± 2.88; highest score on the third day of completing fasting: 17.69 ± 3.97, P = 0.04) and self-rated anxiety (baseline: 26.23 ± 4.75; highest score on the sixth day of completing fasting: 30.85 ± 5.58, P = 0.01), and the change curves were consistent with the inflection point of the energy substrates shifting from serum glucose to ketone. In addition, basic cognitive functions appeared to be unaffected during the 10-day fast.

Conclusions

Our study showed strong influences on the sensations from the third to sixth days of the prolonged fasting period but no significant effects on basic cognitive abilities associated with the energy substance switch. These findings could contribute to the development and understanding of survival strategies in food-shortage emergencies or of intermittent fasting programmes.

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Abbreviations

TG:

Triglycerides

CHOL:

Cholesterol

LDL-C:

Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol

HDL-C:

High-density lipoprotein cholesterol

BL:

Baseline period

FT:

Fasting period

CR:

Calorie restriction period

RE:

Recovery period

PVT:

Psychomotor vigilance test

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Acknowledgements

We thank all 13 volunteers for their contribution to this work.

Funding

These findings were supported by the Advanced Space Medico-Engineering Research Project of China (18035020103), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31470832 and 81801872), the State Key Laboratory of Space Medicine Fundamentals and Application, the China Astronaut Research and Training Center (SMFA17A02, SMFA17B04, SMFA17B06, SMFA18B02, and SMFA18B06), the Space Medical Experiment Project of China Manned Space Program (HYZHXM01002), and Shenzhen Science and Technology Program (CKFW2016082915204709).

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Author notes

  1. Chao Yang, Qianying Ma and Hongyu Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Space Medicine Fundamentals and Application, China Astronaut Research and Training Center, No. 26, Beiqing Road, Haidian District, P.O. Box 5132-15, Beijing, 100094, China

    Chao Yang, Hongyu Zhang, Feng Wu, Chengjia Yang, Hailong Wang, Zhongquan Dai & Yinghui Li

  2. Department of Psychology, Beihang University, No. 37, Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100083, China

    Qianying Ma, Manrui Wu & Ruilin Wu

  3. Lab of Epigenetics and Health Technology, SPACEnter Space Science and Technology Institute, Shenzhen, China

    Ying Chen & Jianghui Xiong

  4. Beijing Ziyuan Fasting Training Center, Beijing, China

    Wenjuan Liu

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  1. Chao Yang
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Contributions

ZD, YL and RW designed the research; CY, QM, HZ, FW, MW, CjY, YC, JX, WL, and HW performed the research and collected the data; CY, QM, HZ, MW, and ZD analysed the data; and CY, QM, RW, HZ, and ZD wrote the manuscript. ZD, RW and YL had primary responsibility for the final content. All the authors conducted the research and read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Ruilin Wu, Zhongquan Dai or Yinghui Li.

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On behalf of all the authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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Yang, C., Ma, Q., Zhang, H. et al. Ten days of complete fasting affected subjective sensations but not cognitive abilities in healthy adults. Eur J Nutr 60, 2747–2758 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-020-02450-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-020-02450-7

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