Longo Patents Intermittent Fasting

[Dean Pomerleau]

Sorry everyone.
 

It appears Valter Longo has patented intermittent fasting. So you all gotta pay up. Seriously. Pretty crazy. Here is the abstract from the patent, which was just granted last month:

 

Methods and diets for lowering glucose and/or IGF-1 levels 
US 9237761 B2

ABSTRACT

 

A method of improving longevity and/or alleviating a symptom of aging or preventing age related diseases is provided. The method includes a step in which the subject's average and type of daily protein intake, IGF-I, and IGFBP1 levels, and risk factors for overall mortality, cancer and diabetes are determined. With respect to protein consumption, the relative amounts of protein calories from animal and plant sources are determined. A periodic normal calorie or low calorie but low protein fasting mimicking diet with frequencies of every 2 weeks to 2 months is provided to the subject if the subject's average daily protein intake level and type and/or IGF-I levels, and/or IGFBP1 levels is identified as being greater or lower than a predetermined cutoff intake/level and if the subject is younger than a predetermined age. The method is also shown to alleviate symptoms of chemotoxicity.

I'm no patent attorney, but it would seem like there should be sufficient "prior art" to invalidate this patent.

 

--Dean

[Sthira]

This reminds me of the yogi Bikram who wanted to patent his sequence of asana.

[Cloud]

does the patent regard only his specific Intermittent/Periodic mimicking fasting regimen (FMD) ? Also "prolon", the product related to his FMD diet, appear to be available for order. (There is a specific website: http://www.aboutprolon.com ) the scope of patent  could be to protect the commercial product? 

[Kenton]

If being a patent attorney and former PTO Examiner enables marginally deciphering mishmashed publications re law / science, I can informally advise that the Longo patent appears to be limited to a "method comprising: providing the subject with a low protein diet having less than about 10 percent calories from protein sources, the low protein diet providing at most 50% of the normal caloric intake of the subject with at least 50% of kilocalories being derived from fat." (See Longo patent, claim 1). Longo apparently assigned his rights in the patent to USC, which appears to have assigned its rights NIH.

[tasbin]

In this recent (?) documentary, this commercial fasting mimic diet is used  by the journalist at 18:20.
The transcription of the video is just below it. Also someone has posted the vegan recipes with the same calorie content and macronutrients of this diet.

[tasbin]

Professor Longo published with others a new study in July about the FMD and cancer:"Fasting-Mimicking Diet Reduces HO-1 to Promote T Cell-Mediated Tumor Cytotoxicity."(doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2016.06.005. )

[Cloud]

Dear All, 

Valter Longo just today has released his book, it is directly in Italian, the link is here

I have just started to reading it, and appears interesting. If I find something that could be interesting for you, I will try to report here.

I think that in a few months will be delivered also an English version, Longo wrote the text in English and the Italian publisher translated it.

[mccoy]

I believe the patent is on the packaged diet. That is, the package containing the preserved food necessary for the 5-days fasting.

 

Longo describes in his book the details of his 5 days FMD with natural food. This of course is not subject to patent.

 

I'm going to post the diet details later. 

[mccoy]

It turns out the FMD is very simple to follow. I'll post a brief excerpt of his book, it goes without saying that I reccomend to buy it when it will be available in the English language, even though maybe the theory is a little too simplified for the tastes of most members of this forum I believe (me included). A worthwhile reading anyway.

VALTER LONGO

Fast Mimicking Diet (FMD)

·        Duration 5 days

·        Frequency once every 1 to 6 months

·        Day 1: 1100 kcal

o   500 kCal complex carbs (vegetables)

o   500 kCal healthy fats

o   Vitamins+minerals supplementation

o   Omega 3-6 supplementation

o   Unsweetened tea (3-4 cups per day)

o   25 grams vegetable proteins (mainly from nuts)

o   Water ad libitum

·        Days 2 to 5:

o   400 kCal complex carbs (vegetables)

o   400 kCal healthy fats

o   Vitamins+minerals supplementation

o   Omega 3-6 supplementation

o   Unsweetened tea (3-4 cups per day)

o   25 grams vegetable proteins (mainly from nuts)

o   Water ad libitum

·        Day 6: transition

o   ‘Complex’ carbs: includes vegetables, cereals, fruit, fruit juices, nuts....

o   Minimize fish, meat, saturated fats, cheese, milk...

 

[mikeccolella]

Hi Mcoy and welcome, in your post it say 400/500 calories healthy fats depending on the day. Does Longo define what he means by "healthy fat"?

[mccoy]

Hi mike, thanks for the welcome, I'm enjoying the specific nutrition erudition which this forum exudes. No kidding.

 

He probably refers to vegetable fats like EVOO and fats from nuts and seeds. As far as I remember, The FMD is all plant-based.

I'm going to check if there is something else.

[mccoy]

I just checked, these are the healthy fats he lists: walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, olive oil.

[Pea]

Cell Metabolism

 

" The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet supplies 1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47% carbohydrate)"

 

How about just eating a 2+ avocados/day & a few greens for 5 days? 

 

-Pea

[mccoy]

 

Cell Metabolism

 

" The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet supplies 1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47% carbohydrate)"

 

How about just eating a 2+ avocados/day & a few greens for 5 days? 

 

-Pea

 

That sounds conceptually correct. Raw green vegetables+raw avocados , as long as the ratios of macronutrients are close to the suggested ones (less would probably be even better). Have you done the calcs yet?

[mccoy]

 

Cell Metabolism

 

" The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet supplies 1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47% carbohydrate)"

 

How about just eating a 2+ avocados/day & a few greens for 5 days? 

 

-Pea

 

 

I just checked again the book. There is a slight difference in macros between article and book.

Edit after more careful reading:

1st day is 1100 Kcla, 25 grams of proteins are added on top of other calories. So it is the same, as in the article.

Whereas successive days in the book are 800 Kcal carbs+fats and 25 grams proteins (about 100 more kCals) are ruled out. 

Also, the details in the article refer to the PROLON package, it is sensible to believe that the 'natural foods' version may be slightly more elastic.

 

Avocados are a good idea anyway, their distinctive benefit is that they tend to have an high satiety index.

 

Basically, the FMD is a 'vegetables at will' diet (leafy vegetables + carrots, squash and mushrooms allowed, I believe no starchy vegetables are allowed). Onions and beets should be OK since carrots are allowed. 2 pounds of lettuce AND one pound of broccoli = 800 Kcal. I think I would never be able to eat so many vegetables in one day.

EVOO may be complementary to veggies. Almost 50 grams of it, abundant dressing for veggies. 

 

I'm looking forward to start one cycle of the FMD!!

[mccoy]

Pls note the editing I made in the previous post. On the days successive to the 1st one, 25 grams (additional) proteins have been eliminated. 

That is, we have 400 Kcal vegetables + 400 Kcal  healthy fats. The proteins coming from these sources are included in the 400+400=800 kCal figure.

 

Now, it is quite evident that, since 'healthy fats' range from nuts to pure EVOO, proteins beyond those present in vegetables can range into an interval whose one plausible estimate may be the following:

 

Additional Proteins =~ [0;15] 

 

The lower bound of course is representative of the category of healthy fats being saturated by 45 grams of EVOO

The upper bound is representative of the category of healthy fats being saturated by 70 grams of almonds.

 

What is best to do is not indicated. I would venture an intermediate situation where pure EVOO plus some almonds are ingested and additional proteins sum up to 7 or 8 grams per day.

 

The above strategy might also be fine tuned basing upon the variety of vegetables ingested (more or less protein rich). More broccoli, less nuts, as a brief example.

[Pea]

Here is a recipe of mine that comes pretty close to the ratio of carbs, fats and proteins mentioned in previous post.

 

~500 Calorie: Green Pasta recipe (~34% Carbs, ~55% Fat, ~11% Protein)

 

 

 

Directions:

1. Make the pesto by placing avocados, garlic, basil in a food processor.

2. Place frozen peas in a bowl filled with hot water and let sit for 1–2 minutes.

3. Use a vegetable peeler or spiralizer to make zucchini pasta.

4. Transfer the pasta into a large bowl filled with mixed greens.

5. Top with avocado pesto, peas and walnuts.  Add pepper according to your taste.

 

 

 

 

-Pea

[mccoy]

Great recipe Pea, an example of how to turn a fast into a feast without loosing the inherent benefits.

 

I'm sure it's going to meet the requirements of the first day, what about the 2nd and successive days though, not totally certain about that.

[Sthira]

Since Longo's FMD boxes themselves include olives and quinoa, mimicking that yesterday I tried two cups of green olives (20 or so) and two cups of cooked quinoa. So that was roughly:

 

915 calories

19 grams protein (8%)

70 g carbs (39%)

57 g fat (52%)

 

Sodium is high with loads of delicious olives, of course. But I sweat, I stare at the heavens and pant, and I fast "water only" quite often; so I'm trying to push BP up rather than down, and maybe that extra sodium keeps me from spilling down into a puddle of floor goo. Or flooog.

[mccoy]

If being a patent attorney and former PTO Examiner enables marginally deciphering mishmashed publications re law / science, I can informally advise that the Longo patent appears to be limited to a "method comprising: providing the subject with a low protein diet having less than about 10 percent calories from protein sources, the low protein diet providing at most 50% of the normal caloric intake of the subject with at least 50% of kilocalories being derived from fat." (See Longo patent, claim 1). Longo apparently assigned his rights in the patent to USC, which appears to have assigned its rights NIH.

 

The very useful details posted by Kenton and appearing on the patent are also relevant if we want to engineer an individual FMD scheme.

While the energy amounts in his book are expressed by a single number, most likely related to an average individual of 75 kg of weight, knowing the relative amounts is of interests since we can relate them directly to our own caloric intake.

 

So, according to the patent, the scheme for an individual custom-tailoring would be as follows;

 

1. Determine the individual caloric requirement K
2. Determine caloric intake during FMD <= K/2
3. Determine protein intake Pr <= 0.1 K/2
4. Determine fat intake  K/2=>Ft >= K/4
5. Determine carbs intake Crb as the difference: Carbs  ~ ( K/2 - Pr - Ft)

 

From the FMD patent it results evident that we have an upper energy bound, whereas the lower energy bound is not fixed a priori.

 

That is, we may choose to be more or less rigorous within the defined upper bound. The very lower bound of the diet would be a water only diet.

 

This is a very elegant conceptual framework of Longo's FMD. Water only (K=0) is the lower bound of a FMD. The upper bound would be :

 

FMD_UB= K/2|Pr <= 0.1 K/2|K/2=>Ft >= K/4

 

All expressed in units of energy (Kcalories or else) 

 

Any suggestions as to envision to practical purposes the mathematics of FMD are appreciated

[mccoy]

I consulted myself the patent application

 

https://www.google.com/patents/US20140227373

 

but I wasn't able to find the exact indications reported by Kenton. However, by the tables and claims in the application and the indications given in the book I was able to build a cronometer example of a typical day 2 to 5, the most restrictive. The Kcalories are representative of my bodyweight range, whereas macros are exactly 45%-45%-10%. Protein content is about one half of my usual target. I'm amazed by how much bulk in food it is possible to eat during the FMD, I seriously doubt I'll be able to. Also, micronutrients levels are almost optimal. Aminoacids are all >= 75% of target and some are even > target. I believe that, by trial and error, we could improve the attached plan and maybe be able to include almost all nutrients at target. Maybe.

 

[mccoy]

Since Longo's FMD boxes themselves include olives and quinoa, mimicking that yesterday I tried two cups of green olives (20 or so) and two cups of cooked quinoa. So that was roughly:

 

915 calories

19 grams protein (8%)

70 g carbs (39%)

57 g fat (52%)

 

Sodium is high with loads of delicious olives, of course. But I sweat, I stare at the heavens and pant, and I fast "water only" quite often; so I'm trying to push BP up rather than down, and maybe that extra sodium keeps me from spilling down into a puddle of floor goo. Or flooog.

 

The macros ratios are good, this is an example of low-bulk FMD just opposite the huge-bulk I portrayed in the previous post. Maybe the best would be a middle way among the two.

In my belief your attempt contained too much quinoa and too little vegetables. My attempt contains so many vegetables that it looks more like a binge than a fast.

[mccoy]

UP.

I'm starting another FMD cycle so it's useful to have a reference (I always forget about the exact calories and nutritional geometry)

[mccoy]

Excertpr from the article in 'Cell metabolism’, where the study on mice and the pilot controlledd trial in humans is described:

Human Diet
The human fasting mimicking diet (FMD) program is a plant-based diet
program designed to attain fasting-like effects while providing micronutrient
nourishment (vitamins, minerals, etc.) and minimize the burden of fasting. It
comprises proprietary vegetable-based soups, energy bars, energy drinks,
chip snacks, chamomile flower tea, and a vegetable supplement formula tablet
(Table S4). The human FMD diet consists of a 5 day regimen: day 1 of the diet
supplies 1,090 kcal (10% protein, 56% fat, 34% carbohydrate), days 2–5 are
identical in formulation and provide 725 kcal (9% protein, 44% fat, 47%
carbohydrate).

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(15)00224-7.pdf