Two recent studies suggest fasting-mimicking diet can have significant benefits:
In Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease, Wei et al, building on previous research showing that rats that periodically fast are metabolically healthier, studied 71 people, who were on FMDs, for several months, finding that they lost weight, lost body fat, lowered blood pressure, and lowered the subjects’ levels of the hormone IGF-1, implicated in aging and disease. Further analysis (post-hoc) also found (while confirming these observations) decreases in the subjects’ BMI, glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, and C-reactive protein. (The link is to an abstract; the full text is behind a paywall.)
In Fasting-Mimicking Diet Promotes Ngn3-Driven -Cell Regeneration to Reverse Diabetes, Cheng et al found that — at least in mice — a fasting-mimicking diet induces prenatal-development gene expression in adult mice, promotes expression of the neurogenin Ngn3 to generate β cells (insulin-producing cells in the pancreas). Cycles of FMD mimicking periods of “feast-and-famine” (five days of low-protein, low-carbohydrate, low-calorie, but high unsaturated-fat, followed by 25 days of eating whatever they want) reverse β cell failure and rescue mice from type-1 and type-2 diabetes.
More work needs to be done: the first study was too small to be conclusive, and the second study has only been done on mice, but it looks very promising.