The World’s Leading Fasting Expert Reveals The Power of Fasting

Dr Alan Goldhamer has spent 40 years helping thousands of people reverse chronic disease using one of humanity’s oldest healing tools: fasting. Today’s TL;DL breaks down his  conversation with Steven Bartlett on The Diary of a CEO, revealing why fasting might be the most powerful intervention you’ve never properly understood.

Note: At times, Dr Goldhamer was unprofessionally derogatory towards animal-based foods and diet. Whilst his knowledge and experience with fasting is commendable, I do not subscribe to this message.

From Kings’ Disease to Everyday Epidemic

Here’s a historical perspective to start with: the diseases killing us today—heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune conditions—used to be called “diseases of kings.” Only wealthy elites who could consistently overeat developed these conditions. Peasants simply couldn’t access enough food to make themselves sick.

Today, 76% of people are overweight or obese, meaning we’ve democratised the dietary excess that was once reserved for royalty. We’re all living like kings now, and dying like them too.

Your Body’s Ancient Survival Switch

When you stop eating, your body activates an evolutionary adaptation. Dr Goldhamer explains that your body has about 24 hours of stored sugar (glycogen) in your muscles and liver. Once these stores are used up, your body switches from burning sugar to burning fat for fuel.

This metabolic switch is what our ancestors relied on to survive periods without food, and the longer you maintain this state, the more efficiently your body becomes at using fat as its primary energy source. This is why even a simple 12-hour daily fast can be beneficial—you’re giving your body regular practice at this natural fat-burning process.

The Exercise-Fasting Connection You Never Knew

Every beneficial change that happens with exercise also happens with fasting. Both activities increase BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor), the neurochemical that protects your brain from Alzheimer’s disease. Both reduce inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, and enhance cardiovascular function and undo the consequences of dietary excess.

Your Body’s Built-In Recycling System

Autophagy sounds complicated, but it’s simply your body’s housekeeping system. During fasting, your cells start “eating” damaged proteins, senescent cells (aged, damaged, or “zombie” cells that have stopped dividing but refuse to die naturally), and even early-stage cancer cells. It’s like having a microscopic clean-up crew working overtime to remove cellular garbage.

This process can increase lifespan in laboratory animals by 30-100%. But here’s Dr Goldhamer’s reframe: It’s not that fasting doubles your lifespan—it’s that overeating cuts it in half.”

Why You’re Eating When You’re Not Hungry

Most eating happens for reasons other than hunger. You eat because you’re bored, tired, or stressed. Worse, the food industry has weaponised this against you using salt, oil, and sugar—what Dr Goldhamer calls “the SOS chemicals.”

These hyper concentrated compounds hijack your dopamine pathways. They make you eat past satiation, tricking your brain into wanting more before your body signals fullness.

The 12-Hour Fast Everyone Can Do

Before considering any extended fasting, master this simple protocol: don’t eat 3-4 hours before bed. This gives you a 12-hour daily fast and allows your digestive system to rest while you sleep.

This simple daily fast helps your body start mobilising visceral fat—the inflammatory fat around your organs that Dr. Goldhamer says “gives off inflammatory products that’s causing heart disease, cancer, diabetes.” Even this modest fasting window begins the process of reducing this harmful fat.

For weight loss, extend this by a few hours by eating within an 8 hour window (dinner by 4pm and breakfast at 8am) or 10 hour window (dinner by 6pm and breakfast at 8am).

This time-restricted eating (TRE) isn’t revolutionary – it’s simply mimicking the natural eating patterns humans followed before electric lighting and 24/7 food availability.

The Hormetic Stress Principle

Fasting creates hormetic stress which is controlled, beneficial stress that makes you stronger, like exercise creating temporary discomfort to build fitness. This stress activates repair mechanisms, reduces inflammation, and can reset everything from your gut microbiome, blood pressure to insulin sensitivity. Studies also show fasting can reverse conditions including high blood pressure, PCOS, and Type 2 diabetes and help with depression, anxiety and in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Here’s Dr Goldhamer’s key insight:

“If you have high blood pressure, you’re not being medicated for your high blood pressure—you’re being medicated for the diet that causes high blood pressure.”

The day you change to a health-promoting diet, your need for medication begins to reduce. Modern healthcare treats symptoms while ignoring the dietary cause.

Why Healthy People Benefit Most

Whilst some may think fasting is for people trying to overcame a health challenge, Dr Goldhamer believe that people who are already healthy get the most dramatic improvements from fasting. Their cholesterol drops lower, blood pressure decreases further, and body composition improves more significantly than expected.

The Bottom Line

Dr Goldhamer’s four decades of research reveal that fasting isn’t about deprivation—it’s about giving your body the space to do what it naturally does best: heal itself. From the simple 12-hour daily fast to longer therapeutic periods, the evidence shows your body has remarkable intelligence in how it uses these breaks from constant digestion. The key is understanding that fasting works with your biology, not against it.