This kept me interested and made me think. It wasn't hard to follow along. The book was full of great information. I will definitely read more about it. It was a little slow in some places but in all not a bad read.

Last year, I read nephrologist Dr. Jason Fung’s The Obesity Code, which it was eye-opening for me. It made me realize that something I sometimes did naturally or inadvertently — skipping meals or snacks — was actually a benefiting weight loss. It clicked for me, because in the periods I’d inadvertently fasted — either from being overly busy with work or, unfortunately, due to anxiety, I lost the most weight and felt best while doing so.

That book presented the best scientific explanation of how weight gain and loss work in understandable layman’s language that I’ve come across. Since more consciously adapting concepts and applying things I learned from that book around the ideas of intermittent fasting, I’ve been able to better maintain my weight without stressing about it (I don’t want to sound like an infomercial and I’m a firm believer in everyone discovering what methodology works best for them and their own biology, so please don’t take this as preaching, only my experience).

The weirdest part was that I felt like I already knew it. There does seem to be something to what the body knows to do for itself. So I was excited to see journalist Steve Hendricks’ new book The Oldest Cure in the World: Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting.


Hendricks looks comprehensively at how fasting has been used for centuries, less to control weight, but more to improve health, including as a targeted cure for many illnesses. My immediate reaction to this was skepticism, but Hendricks is an adept science communicator, able to explain the processes behind the cellular repair that takes place during periods of fasting and thus can actually treat.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of clinical research into fasting as a cure, despite the impressive claims for healing that get attributed to it. Hendricks explains it’s because clinical trials are sponsored by drug companies, who obviously don’t stand to benefit from fasting. No one does. It’s free. And there he identifies the reason why fasting has been neglected or overlooked for so long. It’s deceptively simple, and promoting it as a cure has zero financial benefit. If anything, many stand to lose a lot of money if fasting were more heavily adopted.

Granted, there are wildly expensive fasting clinics and retreats — Hendricks describes, in perhaps too-much detail, his own experiences at two: a pricey one in Bavaria and a more simplistic one in California, but it was fascinating to see how this experience plays out in a more clinical, controlled setting.

I admit a lot of this triggered a reaction in me that it’s just too easy — too good to be true. According to Hendricks’ research, it’s been shown to have benefits for any condition it’s been applied to, save a handful — it can’t cure cancer but it has shrunken tumors, and it can’t stop or reverse aging but it can allegedly slow it.

This is hopeful and incredibly thought-provoking. It made me think of how animals instinctively stop eating when they’re ill, and many human illnesses trigger that tendency too. I’m far from a naturopath, but it would be foolish to discount any of the body’s own remarkable healing techniques (Bill Bryson’s The Body contains some amazing insights into this area too).

Hendricks is thorough, covering the history of fasting and its various proponents through the ages, dating back to its earliest record in human history, its popularity with the Greek fathers of modern medicine, Christian saints, and its iterations in nineteenth-century America, what Hendricks identifies as the start of “the modern era of therapeutic fasting”.

I did find myself less interested in some of these historical aspects: it can be a somewhat confusing, non-linear history and gets pretty in the weeds while bouncing between narrative threads, which made it difficult for me to stay invested. Where it shines is in its second half, as Hendricks breaks down the biological and cellular processes that are affected by fasting and looks at modern cases of its application, as well as his own experiences, plus more of the science behind various types of fasting and how and what they accomplish, including how illnesses are improved. He also analyzes the difficulty of mainstream acceptance, whether due to people’s knee-jerk reaction to not eating or the lack of support without sufficient profit.

It was sometimes information overload, because although I’m already on board with fasting, I felt confused about the optimal methodology and which little details or adjustments might actually be more harmful than helpful when it comes to things like interfering with circadian rhythms, blood sugar, etc.

But it’s promising and something I’ll refer back to often. I hope it could help more people consider fasting – there is such a wealth of evidence – both scientific, despite the barriers to its clinical testing, and anecdotal – about what it can do, and it’s far beyond weight loss or management.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Abrams Press for an advanced copy of this book on the history and methods for fasting and dieting.

Giving things up is hard. Especially food or drink. Numerous people I know need that first cup of coffee, and my nephews would just die if they didn't get Goldfish crackers when watching television. However abstaining from something isn't easy either. Not only the mental pressures and pangs that a person has while giving something that meant so much up, but society pressures as people feel uncomfortable about themselves when others try something new. Like not drinking alcohol at a wedding. Or not trying the super special cake at a super special and expensive birthday celebration. Now imagine giving up eating, and in some cases drinking for health. Suddenly everyone is WebMD about the subject. There is a lot of misconceptions and bad ideas about fasting, and journalist and occasional faster Steve Hendricks has tried to clear up a lot of them in his book The Oldest Cure in the World: Adventures in the Art and Science of Fasting. Hendricks discusses the history, religious meaning and science of fasting, along with his experiments in fasting and its effects on his own health.

The book begins wth a story set in America at the end of the 19th century. A gentlemen doctor enters into a bet with society doctors saying that he could fast for forty days without ill effects or much in the way of discomfort. He will accomplish this while being watched at all times, everything monitored and examined, and without water, almost to add a little challenge to the story. Soon the public would gather, watching the uneating man, as after he started drinking water after rough patch, went against most scientific thinking and remained relatively healthy. Soon he broke his fast, almost gorging and soon regained back his weight, again with no ill effects. I had never heard this story, and find it fascinating. From there the book goes into the history of fasting dealing with both religious and philosophical figures who promoted fasting, or railed against, it, and even into some quack medicine that tried to profit from it. Hendricks investigates the science and the health issues that can be helped by fasting, and the battles that still go on among medical professionals about the benefits and consequences involved. The author also describes his own fasts, losing weight after a knee injury, traveling to fasting resorts in beautiful locales, and stripmalls in California.

A book that asks and answers a lot about a subject that seems strange to be so controversial. As a person who has had problems with weight, the ideas here are intriguing and worth attempting. The research seems full, with a lot of sourceing and much of the information was new to me. Hendricks has a very good way of presenting information, explaining the subject and making the information clear. Balanced with his own tales of fasting it makes for a very interesting book.

I'm not sure if this is for everyone. And I know this would be hard for a lot of people. I did do a juice fast years ago and was not in a rush to get back to food I think not eating for almost two days afterward. However since then I have made up for that. A nice overview of something that might be able to help people, and very well written at that.