Transcription
Life expectancy is increasing in Western countries, but alas. Modern life conditions cause diseases. That's why the term "civilization disease" was invented. Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer. The number of diseases is exploding. So is the consumption of medication. The side effects of certain chemical crutches regularly make headlines. Mistrust is setting in. If we talk about drug treatment, I can say that we are at an impasse today. Perhaps there is another therapeutic path? An ancient method praised by religions? Unknown to science, fasting. For half a century, in Russia, Germany, or the United States, doctors and biologists have been exploring this path. We wanted to know if it was visible in the laboratory at the hormonal level. Caloric restriction has an effect. So, can we increase this effect with fasting? By what mechanism does fasting act? For what pathology is it effective? The results are astonishing, particularly in the treatment of the disease of the century. It's a new approach to cancer treatment. Some would say a complementary approach. The results of this work open up unexpected perspectives and outline a different approach to illness and care. Ah. [Music] [Music] This is a unique experience in the heart of Russia, in the Siberian plain. Here, for 15 years, fasting has become a central element of public health policy. A policy based on 40 years of scientific studies conducted in the former Soviet Union on thousands of patients, and completely unknown in the West. This work has given rise to a rigorous method put into practice here. After 4 hours by bus on a difficult road, Liubov Baranova arrives at the sanatorium of Goriatinsk. She comes on the advice of her brother, who was treated by a fasting cure. [Music] The shores of Lake Baikal, a few hundred meters away. The setting is idyllic. Goriatinsk is renowned for its hot springs and, since 1995, for its fasting center. The cures are reimbursed. An entire building is reserved for fasters. My brother was asthmatic, he was suffocating. He couldn't sleep at night and he kept everyone else from sleeping. After reading an article about fasting, he decided to fast for 21 days. I had a terrible allergy to sweets, oranges, all that. I was treated for years, nothing helped me. My allergy returned after each treatment. On the 7th day, he was flying. He was healthy. He believed in this miracle and was cured by this method. He fasted several times. Of course, immediately >> I was among the first to come here to Goriatinsk. >> I fasted for 18 days. >> Fasting is not a trivial undertaking. No one knows how their body will react to food deprivation. I was scared. 52 treatments during your stay with us, you will fast for 5 days out of 7, you will break your fast. First stage of treatment, reassuring newcomers. Patient adherence is essential. Very often, we receive people who have been hospitalized, who have had the best clinical examinations, and nothing has helped them. Fasting is a universal method that can be effective against several diseases. That's why people often return and solve their problems with us. The treatment is of biblical simplicity. Drink water, water, and then water for an average of 12 days. Nothing else is ingested. Some fasts can last 3 weeks, depending on the severity and duration of the illness. For chronic conditions, medication is stopped within two or three days. Patients are therefore placed under medical supervision. This point is essential. There's no question of embarking on fasting alone. The support of a professional trained in this practice is fundamental. During fasting, there is not really a lack of nutrients. A decrease in vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, and other metabolic components can be observed. But these losses are not critical. In 15 years, 10,000 patients have undergone a fasting cure here. Their medical records are kept in these archives. Patients came to treat problems of diabetes, asthma, hypertension, rheumatism, allergies. Nearly two-thirds of them saw their symptoms disappear after one or more fasting cures. They all say the hardest part is not depriving themselves of food. The sensation of hunger disappears after two or three days. The delicate stage is what is called the acidosis crisis here. Olia hasn't eaten for 5 days. She has just gone through this crisis, which sometimes manifests as a feeling of weakness, nausea, or migraines. Me me >> This is the price to pay for the body's adaptation to this radical change. The body must learn to live on its reserves. On the 3rd day it was hard. Now it's more or less okay. The body is getting used to it. Today it's better, but it's not ideal. That's because on the third day it's elimination, detoxification. That's why it's a bit hard and patients don't feel very well. After that, it gets better, the body cleans itself and it gets better and better. According to Russian doctors, the onset of this crisis marks an essential step in the healing process. Urine analyses determine the peak and duration. By changing its mode of nutrition, the blood acidity level increases. During the crisis, all diseases worsen. Sometimes patients even experience very strong pain, as in the case of migraines, for example, or joint pain if it's gout or arthritis. But it doesn't last very long, usually no more than 24 or 36 hours. This crisis is a sign of a profound upheaval in the body. The body must feed itself. And how can it provide the necessary fuel for its survival? The body has three fuels: glucose, lipids, and proteins. The essential fuel is glucose, which the body absolutely needs to function. The brain cannot do without it. But after one day of fasting, the glucose supply is depleted. How will the body adapt? It will very quickly produce glucose from proteins, meaning mainly muscles. It will also draw on its lipid reserves, fats, to create a glucose substitute. This fasting fuel is called ketone bodies. It is these ketone bodies that will now primarily fuel the brain. The operation takes place in the liver, the body's true processing plant. After the crisis, the body finds a new balance. Treatments help to better tolerate fasting. Intestinal enemas, wraps, massage. Russian doctors recommend 2 to 3 hours of physical exercise daily. Everything converges towards the same goal: stimulating the elimination organs. The kidneys, intestines, liver, lungs, skin are all involved. The body must be allowed to eliminate metabolic waste. Today is my 5th day of fasting. Look at my face, my eyes. A real young girl without makeup, without anything. You are natural. But if the body adapts, the mind doesn't always keep up. Patients have noticed that the psyche influences the body to the point of making it believe in needs it no longer has. The 3rd day was the hardest. It's not the stomach that asks for food, it's the head. And that's what's difficult. In your head, you see chips, cola, meat, lots of meat. When this psychological hunger disappears, the senses sharpen and a certain euphoria sets in. I feel a sense of freedom. I realized I am strong. If I can fast, I can do anything. But how does fasting work? How can we explain that two-thirds of patients feel better? Such a figure calls for caution. Is it a placebo effect? An effect of this euphoria that grips the brain, or have the changes that everyone describes been measured in the body with objective instruments? To understand, let's go back 60 years to a time when the Soviet Union was a fortress, a time when researchers were not allowed to cross the Iron Curtain. Research was conducted in the secrecy of laboratories, far from the West. At the beginning of this scientific adventure, as is often the case in science, it was the encounter between chance and a researcher with an original way of thinking. Moscow, Korsakov Hospital. The chemical restraint replaces the straitjacket, but the treatment gains little in humanity. Confronted one day with a prostrate patient who refused to eat, a psychiatrist, Yuri Nikolaev, stood out. He decided to let the patient's instinct take over, not to force him to eat as was the rule. In his notebooks, the psychiatrist noted with surprise: "From the 5th day, his negativism began to decrease. The patient opened his eyes. On the 10th day, he started to walk but remained silent. On the 15th day, he drank a glass of apple juice left on his bedside table. Then he went for a walk, began to return to social life." The man finally recovered. A mentally ill patient treated by fasting. The case was unique. Yuri Nikolaev, here he is fifteen years later. Astonished by the almost miraculous effectiveness of the treatment, he continued to experiment with it, to develop it. Success exceeded expectations. The waiting list of patients grew. Nikolaev treated schizophrenia, depression, phobias, obsessive syndromes with an average fasting duration of 25 to 30 days, sometimes even 40. In a small apartment in Moscow, the same one where his father lived, Nikolaev's son remembers the growing opposition from the medical world. Doctors were opposed to fasting because they didn't understand its essence. People are used to thinking that being hungry is a misfortune. You have to turn your head upside down to accept the idea that fasting can heal. And it's even more difficult for a doctor than for an ordinary person. To silence criticism, to make scientific history, Nikolaev undertook a vast research program. Physiological and biochemical examinations, hormonal parameters, electroencephalogram tracings were studied during and after fasting in hundreds of cases. Psychiatrists established correlations between the changes observed in the body during fasting and the patient's improvement. Fasting has an impact not only on mental illnesses but also on the entire personality. The young doctor Gurvich was part of this research team. He worked at the age of 18 alongside the master. Fasting has a stimulating effect and an antidepressant effect. The stimulating effect occurs during the first week of fasting, and the antidepressant effect during refeeding. The third type of effect is the sedative, calming effect. It is observed after the acidosis crisis. Nikolaev treated 8,000 patients with fasting, with significant progress for 70% of them. Six years later, 47% still maintained this improvement. Some were able to resume social lives, start families. But another surprise: Nikolaev and his team noticed that not only had the patients' mental state improved, but their somatic illnesses too: hypertension, polyarthritis, asthma, eczema. He appealed to the public authorities. The skeptical Ministry of Health then launched a verification campaign of his results. We are in 1973. It mandated several recognized doctors. Among them, Professor Kokoszov and Professor Maximov. Both were military doctors. They obeyed. An order is an order. Until then, I knew nothing about fasting. So, I had two objectives. To verify if the method worked and to explain why. It was necessary to study the secretion of the stomach, liver, pancreas, intestine, the bacterial landscape, the immune status, the exchange of minerals and vitamins. Research multiplied with thousands of patients. Researchers confirmed Nikolaev's results. They established precise lists of indications and contraindications for fasting treatment: bronchial pathology, cardiovascular pathology, stomach pathology, intestinal pathology, endocrine pathology, digestive pathology, joint and bone pathology, skin pathology. Contraindications: cancer, tuberculosis, type 1 diabetes, chronic hepatitis, thrombophlebitis, anorexia. But how to explain the effect of fasting? Fasting causes a state of stress. This releases in us the mechanisms of sanogenesis, self-regulation, which usually remain passive due to our lifestyle. Stress would therefore be the central point. Stress is an adaptive reaction to a change in the environment. Here, food deprivation. Faced with this food deprivation, the body triggers an alert, which causes hormonal and neuroendocrine upheaval. Hormones mobilize the body's reserves. Some also have an anti-inflammatory effect. For Russian doctors, it is these self-regulation mechanisms that induce therapeutic effects. Thus, many blood parameters improve: blood sugar, cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin levels. In parallel, the body's energy expenditure gradually decreases. Respiration, heart rate, blood pressure, everything lowers and slows down. The digestive system is also put to rest. Fasting would therefore have the capacity to stimulate the body's healing forces. But how to measure this capacity? Professor Osinin is a specialist in bronchial asthma. A student of Cocosov, the pulmonologist has fasted nearly 10,000 asthmatic patients. 40 years of practice, not a single accident, he states. Among the studies he conducted, Osinin points to the evolution of the cells of the bronchial mucosa. These dark cells reveal the presence of histamine. It is histamine that causes hyperseretion and thus bronchial spasms. After 12 days of fasting, there is no more histamine. The cells have filled with lipids, the spasms have disappeared. This data is unique because the question has never been asked in this way. And therefore, there is no equivalent in the world. We studied both general changes throughout the body and local changes. And we saw the disappearance of substances that cause edema and inflammation. Bronchial asthma is a chronic disease. According to official medicine, it cannot be cured, only managed. Many patients are condemned to inhalers or treatments that temporarily relieve their condition. Osinin's work shows that this fate can be avoided. The pulmonologist analyzed the long-term effects. The study involved nearly 1,000 patients. After 7 years, improvement persists for 50% of the patients, those who adopted good dietary habits after fasting. Several cures were sometimes necessary. 10 to 15% are completely cured. From all corners of the Soviet Union, experimental data accumulated with an ambition: to be integrated into public health policy. The Academy of Sciences validated the results and compiled them into imposing volumes. Never translated. Despite the scale of this work, unparalleled in the world, the richness of the clinical descriptions, and the number of diseases studied, some gray areas remain. Yes, laboratory results show that it works. But why? How are the mechanisms called sanogenesis set in motion? To date, I cannot answer the question: what is sanogenesis? Will the answer come from Western researchers? Here, no state conducts such research. The pharmaceutical industry obviously gives it no credit. Yet, there is a practice of fasting, an expanding practice that has recently entered the political and scientific arena. Next stage of the journey, Germany. In this country, 15 to 20% of the population declares having fasted. The oldest fasting center was created on the shores of Lake Constance nearly 60 years ago. As on the shores of Lake Baikal, the watchword is elimination, and elimination is done in groups. The reputation of the Buchinger clinic has spread beyond borders. 2,000 people stay here each year. People come to relieve chronic illnesses. They also come for prevention and to combat risk factors such as hypertension, diabetes, or obesity. Usually, Jürgen Bal wears a suit and tie. Usually, no one puts a hot water bottle on his liver. Usually, he works in an azure glass tower. I am a banker and I had to travel to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. And if you want to do business there, you have to drink vodka and eat fatty food. It accumulated over the years. My liver had grown by 7 cm and my blood results were very bad. My general practitioner, who is a cardiologist, told me, "That's enough. Either you change your job, no more Moscow, no more Russia, no more vodka, or you fast." And for me, I didn't believe I could fast. It seemed impossible to eat nothing for 3 weeks. Hungry all day, without a glass of wine. I'm a gourmet, I can't. From the very first cure, Mr. Bal's liver returned to its normal size. His blood tests returned to normal. Since then, he has watched his diet and returns to Überlingen every year. Fasting is a bit like resetting the clock. No, these are not traditional treats, but small deviations from the strictness of fasting. Light soup or fruit juice are served twice a day. These 250 daily calories soften the acidosis crisis and make the first few days easier. This is a bit of the peculiarity of the method developed by Otto Buchinger, the very man who created the center. This military doctor, suffering from acute articular rheumatism and confined to a wheelchair by doctors in 1918, cured himself thanks to two successive fasts. This spectacular recovery led him to study the therapeutic possibilities of fasting and to create a treatment center that has become a reference in Germany today. The duration ranges from one to three weeks. Pauline Valik is coming to the Buchinger clinic for the second time this year. This interpreter, who lives in Switzerland, suffers from severe rheumatism. She decided to fast for 12 days. I thought I wouldn't be able to move anymore. Yes. Uh last year, I really had a moment of despair where I said to myself, "But I'm still too young to be bedridden, but what will my life be like, especially since I live alone." I arrived in February absolutely exhausted from pain, from medication too, because I had taken anti-rheumatics, cortisone, well, everything they normally give, and I was exhausted by all that and I felt really exhausted, and this fast, contrary to what one might think, instead of exhausting me even more, well, I had the impression that by purifying myself, my body had regained the necessary spring to bounce back. And of course, I didn't leave here on tiptoe and skipping. No, but I felt that from that moment on, my body had regained its ability to heal itself. And I really thought I would be stuck with medication. Well, I'm not, I've stopped them. Depending on the severity of the illness and its duration, stopping medication is not always possible. Thank you. And please lean back. This patient stays at the clinic twice a year. Suffering from very advanced psoriatic arthritis, he does not envision a complete recovery. In this specific case, Dr. Drinda, a rheumatologist who worked for 9 years in a university hospital, attempts to reduce medication doses through fasting. Okay. And wait, lean forward, please. We also know this phenomenon in the case of rheumatoid polyarthritis. It has been shown that by fasting, one needs fewer non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. And that's good because the side effects of these drugs are not negligible. Mr. Bal will break his fast this evening. A crucial moment. Eating anything and in large quantities would compromise the success of the treatment and could even be very dangerous. The body must slowly re-accustom itself to food. The refeeding period is therefore highly supervised, both in Germany and in Russia. I always look forward to this moment, but on one hand I'm happy and on the other I regret it because it was a good time. Well, whether it's soup or something else, I enjoy it. Are you impatient? A little. Yes, a little. >> stupid. >> We should be able to create a health market, and fasting would be a pillar of it. Today, we have an extraordinarily lucrative market for illness, especially for chronic diseases. When a diabetic becomes chronic, it means decades of opportunities to sell medication, to operate on them, etc. So it's a quite productive market. Making fasting a pillar of the health market would mean opposing the grip of chemistry on illness, denying the profits of pharmaceutical labs. We are far from that in Germany, yet things are evolving. Here, for nearly 10 years, in an annex of the Charité Hospital in Berlin, the largest European public hospital, one floor of a building is reserved for patients undergoing fasting cures. About ten public hospitals do the same. The practice is gradually taking its place in the arsenal of official medicine. Professor Michelson has directed several scientific studies on fasting. He offers this therapy to his patients suffering from rheumatism, metabolic syndromes, or heart problems. The cures are reimbursed by the social security system. Nearly 500 patients undergo a cure each year according to the Buchinger method. The demand is increasing. The service turns away people due to lack of space. Without knowing the Russian work, Michelson also measured hormonal changes in the body. In many studies on patients, we have observed the presence of adrenaline, noradrenaline, dopamine, leptin, serotonin, i.e., hormones that strongly regulate metabolism but also influence mood. The serotonin level, often called the happiness hormone, is increased. Like the Russian psychiatrists, Michelson observed an improvement in the mood of fasting patients. He also noted a reduction in pain and better sensitivity of insulin receptors. He also found that fasters were more willing to adopt a healthier lifestyle after fasting, thus conducive to maintaining good health. If I had conducted studies on a new drug and obtained these results, I would certainly receive a call every day with proposals, financial aid, money for research. Regarding fasting, we are content to observe and say, "Here, this research is not really encouraged. This absolutely must change." It is very easy for detractors and skeptics to say that there are not enough studies when we know that no financial aid is granted to carry out these studies. Michelson no longer focuses on the fundamental mechanisms of fasting. As a doctor confronted daily with a growing number of chronic diseases, it is in this area that he points out the shortcomings. We need two or three large, good studies. I would say for rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and hypertension. Three studies to convince, to show that fasting has its rightful place in the therapeutic arsenal, just like medications. It would take millions of euros, but credits are not knocking on Michelson's laboratory door. The detractors of fasting, for their part, continue to brandish a peremptory argument. It would be dangerous. What exactly is the situation? Can the limits of fasting be set? It is impossible to conduct these experiments on humans for obvious ethical reasons. It is from the study of wild fauna that the answer will come. This answer will shed striking light on the mystery of the mechanisms. But let's not anticipate. There is a peculiar bird on the frozen lands of the Antarctic continent that has fascinated researchers for decades. The emperor penguin practices fasting spontaneously as soon as it returns to its colony on the ice floe. When incubating its egg while waiting for the female's return, the male is capable of going without food for about 4 months. An extraordinary faculty that has always amazed Yvon Le Mao. Very early on, the researcher asked himself the question: Is the emperor penguin not a professional faster with mechanisms that humans do not have or that other animals do not have? In Strasbourg, in his CNRS laboratory, Yvon Le Mao gathers existing literature in the West on the subject but does not find the answer. Some certainties nevertheless: fasting can be dangerous because by feeding on its own stores, the body draws on its protein reserves. Proteins are muscles, and the heart is also a muscle. When half of the proteins have disappeared, it is death. Yvon Le Mao and his colleagues will measure the percentage of proteins consumed by the penguin during its fast. This figure is crucial for setting its limits. The result is remarkable. During most of the fast, proteins provide only 4% of the energy expenditure each day. 96% comes from lipids. The body adapts perfectly. It conserves its proteins. We can therefore divide fasting into three stages. Remember, the body depletes its glucose reserves in 24 hours, then it produces it from protein reserves. A second phase then begins during which it will conserve its proteins and use lipids as a priority. This phase can last a very long time depending on the available fat reserves. In the penguin, it can reach 100 days without problems. But the reserves are gradually depleted. When 80% of the fat reserve has disappeared, proteins are no longer conserved. The animal enters phase 3, it must refeed before it is too late. But is the mechanism the same in other animals? Jean-Patrice Robin, who works with Yvon le Mao, conducts an experiment with rats, animals that do not have the reputation of being professional fasters. Daily weighing. Urine analysis? How will the rats adapt to fasting? Will their proteins be depleted faster than those of the penguin? Surprise, the results are comparable. During phase 2, the rat conserves its proteins in the same way as the penguin. There is therefore no difference. One of the fundamental mechanisms of fasting, which allows survival for a long time without food, is a common mechanism. This observation opens up an unexpected perspective with immense consequences. And if the mechanism is common, it is because this mechanism has existed as long as there have been animals on earth, and man, we see that he has the same capacities. So fasting, instead of being something dangerous, is an adaptation that has existed since the earliest times of life on earth and which, at least within the limits we have defined, presents no danger. The ability to fast would therefore be an adaptation mechanism shaped by evolutionary history. From the penguin to man, it's just a step. Scientific studies have shown that an adult of 1.70m weighing 70kg has about 15kg of fat reserves. Enough to last, if in good health, about forty days. From an evolutionary point of view, survival was probably accompanied by periods of fasting. The situation we have today, regular meals, a full fridge, is historically not normal. Thus, it is not surprising that the body encounters difficulties when it does not fast, when it eats constantly. Our genetic heritage seems to be less adapted to this situation than to fasting. Thus, our body would be better equipped to withstand food deficiency than excess. Fasting would therefore only reactivate atavistic reflexes embedded in the body's memory. If the hypothesis is founded, if the capacity to fast is inherited from our evolution, it must be observable in the genetic code. Our memory is there. But who would be crazy enough to look for what no one is looking for? Walter Longo is a young Italian researcher working in a laboratory at UCLA, the University of California, Los Angeles. His field is gerontology, or the mysteries of aging. At 16, he immigrated to the United States hoping to become a rock star. He is now an internationally renowned biologist. Like all gerontologists, Valter Longo has a goal: to delay chronic diseases that appear with age, to push back Alzheimer's, to curb cancer, in short, to slow down the effects of aging. Researchers have shown that reducing an animal's food intake over a long period allows it to live longer and in better health. Longo knows this. One day, he decides to take a decisive step. Why not move to extreme caloric restriction, fasting? The idea seemed crazy, especially in sophisticated laboratories in California. Not for Longo. He has an intuition that fasting could protect the body against all sorts of toxins. He will test one of the most toxic products there is: chemotherapy, this poison intended to destroy cancer. He takes mice with cancer and divides them into two groups. The first group is fed normally, the second group fasts for 48 hours. First, he convinced some young researchers that it wasn't a completely crazy idea. Imagine, you deprive someone of food, you think they will weaken, right? Difficult, especially for young people, but also for our own colleagues. It's hard to imagine that you can take away food from someone and they become stronger. He then injects the mice with high doses of chemotherapy. Doses three to five times higher than those authorized in humans. Doses that should cause devastating side effects. Will the mice resist such a treatment? Will there be a difference between those who fasted and the others? Longo is away when a colleague informs him of the results. She called me and said, "You won't believe the results. It looks like all the mice that fasted are alive, and those that ate are dead." Obviously, I was very happy with the result. It was even better than I had hoped, and I asked for the experiment to be repeated in two different labs, and the results were exactly the same. In these images filmed by the laboratory, the differences between the two groups of mice are striking. On one hand, those who fasted look in perfect health. They move normally, their fur is smooth. The tissues are not damaged, cognitive functions seem intact. Here on the right are the mice that ate normally. In the end, only 35% survived. In poor condition, they remain huddled in their cages. In-depth examinations showed that their hearts and brains were also affected. The news causes a sensation. As soon as it is published in a scientific journal, the press picks it up. The results currently only concern mice. It doesn't matter. Journalists everywhere relay the good news. Fasting protects against the side effects of chemotherapy. The Norris Hospital in Los Angeles, one of the largest cancer centers in the United States. Here, 200 therapeutic trials are conducted each year. They take the discovery very seriously. The hospital management launches a therapeutic trial with patients without delay. Dr. Tania Dorf is in charge of supervising it. The young oncologist is enthusiastic. On the front of cancer, those who are on the front lines are aware that they need new strategies. I always thought it was a shame that our weapons against cancer were so destructive. They attack everything that grows and divides indiscriminately. We are developing better, more targeted therapies, but I think it's very smart to try to protect the body and optimize the damage caused to cancer while reducing that to healthy cells. But caution is necessary. Few people have been recruited so far. This patient fasted for 24 hours, others for 48 hours, no longer than that for now. We must first prove that fasting is not dangerous for cancer patients, because this revolutionary approach goes against official recommendations, which advocate the opposite, an increase in calories and proteins before each chemotherapy session. The experiment must gradually be extended to a larger number of patients. Money is not lacking, public and private funds are flowing. Indeed, here fasting does not replace medication. By reducing side effects, it could even allow for an increase in chemotherapy doses. As a doctor at the hospital confided to us, imagine an inexpensive and easy-to-implement treatment. This trial is very important. If we prove that the concept is correct, if we manage to demonstrate that patients have fewer side effects after fasting, then it will potentially be applicable to a very large number of patients. Not just for one type of cancer, but perhaps for all cancers. The therapeutic trial will take time, but when life is at stake, the slowness of protocols is hard to accept. Nora Queen did not wait. She is not a daredevil by any means. This Los Angeles County judge wanted to tell us her story and, at the same time, meet the researcher who, as she says, gave her back hope. It was by reading an article in the Los Angeles Times describing Longo's work that Nora Queen made her decision. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. If I had waited for them to complete the therapeutic trial, I would have had to wait 10 years and I would have died of my breast cancer. I couldn't wait. I was lucky. My oncologist was open. She didn't really encourage me. She told me, "If you want to fast, go ahead. I don't think it will make any difference, but go ahead." Nora Queen had to undergo five chemotherapy sessions. She dreaded the side effects, especially cognitive impairment. Under the supervision of a doctor friend, she fasted for 5 days before the first chemotherapy. She felt well and was able to continue working. For the next two sessions, her oncologist persuaded her not to fast. She tolerated chemotherapy very poorly, felt very sick, and then decided to fast before the last two chemo sessions. Again, she felt much better. For me, there is no doubt that I had fewer side effects during my treatment. I was less tired and my neurons were less affected than those of my friends who did not fast and went through the same chemotherapy cycles. I have no doubt about that. Nora Queen is not the only patient to have fasted spontaneously. Among the thirty or so people who have tried the experiment, Norris Hospital was able to gather 10, consult their medical records, and retrieve their analyses. Nora Queen was part of this study, the results of which confirm those observed in mice. Fasting made chemotherapy more bearable. Fatigue, weakness, nausea, and migraines were considerably reduced. But if fasting protects against the potentially devastating effects of chemotherapy, how does it act on chemotherapy itself? Does it make it more effective or not? Before answering this crucial question, we must first understand by what mechanism fasting protects healthy cells. Does fasting cause a change in gene expression? The lab selects liver, heart, muscle cells. Let's unroll their DNA strand. Here are the genes. These genes direct the cell's work. Their expression is normal. After two days of fasting, the lab observes a radical change in gene expression. Some are overexpressed, others underexpressed. The genes modify the functions of the cells. They enter protection mode. A total, very rapid upheaval, as if this capacity came from a very ancient memory. Normal cells, having learned all the lessons of 3 billion years of evolution, enter protection mode. They must do so because there is little glucose, little food. They must protect themselves as much as possible, and chemotherapy is one of the things they must be protected from. Cells therefore protect themselves by an atavistic reflex. Yvon le Mao, the penguin specialist, had put us on the right track. But if fasting protects healthy cells, doesn't it also protect cancer cells? If so, Longo's entire demonstration collapses. Let's compare a cancer cell to a healthy cell. After two days of fasting, the genes of the cancer cell express themselves in the opposite way to those of the healthy cell. Cancer cells have undergone genetic mutations. They have lost the memory of evolution. The protection mechanisms are not triggered. Cancer cells hate this environment where there is little sugar, few growth factors. So not only are they not protected, but they become more sensitive to chemotherapy. They can die, or at least their growth is slowed down. And therefore, fasting can slow down their growth even without chemotherapy. Even without chemotherapy, we are told. For cancer cells, fasting therefore proves to be a nightmare. I recently gave a presentation to one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and challenged the company executives to develop a cocktail of drugs. Not a single drug, but a cocktail of drugs whose effects would be more powerful than those of fasting. Are we ready to think about the world differently? What if consumption were no longer the totem of our economy? Here, lack is no longer experienced as a defeat. Are we ready, as Nicolaev's son asked us, to turn our heads upside down? Today, Alexey Koko continues Nicolaev's adventure. But times are difficult. The fall of the Soviet regime in the 1990s disorganized the public health system. The practice of fasting has become paid, too expensive for many Russian budgets. There remains this corner of the earth, hours by plane from any metropolis, where the state itself encourages and develops the practice of fasting. On the way to the Goriatinsk sanatorium, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary, Kokozov meets his former student, Dr. Batailleeva. Kokozov has trained more than a hundred doctors in Siberia. Should we be surprised? Here, resources are limited. The ecological balance is fragile. Saving money is a necessity. Fasting is therefore not considered madness, nor a punishment. Abstinence is celebrated as it should be. The Minister of Health, himself a doctor and an enthusiastic defender of fasting, has come to offer his zealous support to the practice. [Applause] 15 years, hurray, hurray, happy anniversary, tomorrow's morning, tomorrow's [Music] And what if this small republic finally sent us back to our own hesitations? To the difficulties of our health model, which so often resembles a market for illness, to the mirage of unlimited expansion, while our evolution has designed us to resist lack. Ok. [Music] [Music]