The Fast Mimicking Diet is a diet based on a calorie restriction of a few days a month, and which is based on the extensive research of, among others, Dr. Valter Longo , professor of gerontology, biological sciences and senile dementias at the University of Southern California, as well as director of the Longevity Institute,  of which I have spoken here . In practice, according to these researches and the results of two studies, one based on laboratory mice, the second on a sample of 19 people of both sexes and an age ranging from 19 to 75 years, this new type of intermittent fasting , or rather, a fasting-mimicking diet, would allow people to lose weight and maintain a healthy body weight (with a 3% weight reduction and visceral fat decrease), increase the immune defenses and reduce the risk of inflammation but also to “regenerate”, in the sense that this diet would work from “anti-age”.

After the incredible media interest of Dr. Longo’s results, even in Italy, many people have wondered what this fasting-mimicking diet consists of . It is precisely 5 days of diet per month (3 for the mice in the experiment): on the first day the participants in the study followed a diet of about 1090 calories, in the following 4 days a diet of 725 calories. The breakdown of macronutrients is also the key to this diet, which is low in protein (up to 10%), and has the rest more or less equally divided between fats and carbohydrates. In short, a calorie restriction lasting 5 days a month , with a low-protein, plant-based diet, that is, vegan.
HowI have already written in this article , all the theories on calorie restriction as a panacea for all ills leave me perplexed, because the studies that have been carried out over the decades have given controversial results: from yeasts to various species of mice, from rhesus monkeys up to humans, the results of calorie restrictions have always been contradictory, and in general they do not seem to encourage us to continue on this path. I know what you think: you have heard about the Veronesi fasting diet and the various intermittent fasting diets, and you have told yourself that the results were promising, and maybe you have tried. But here are some things that I think need to be clarified , even about the new  Fast Mimicking Diet.