Fascinating research suggests that taking breaks from eating—known as intermittent fasting—might help mice mend their nerves after injury. Scientists are now wondering if this could also work for humans.
Imagine you’ve hurt your nerves, perhaps from an accident or surgery. Right now, treatments are limited, but what if something as simple as changing when you eat could make a difference? This idea comes from a study where scientists saw that fasting could change the tiny organisms living in the guts of mice, leading to better nerve healing.
Let’s get into what the researchers found and why it’s got them excited about possibilities for repairing nerves.
Intermittent Fasting: A New Hope for Nerve Damage?
Researchers at Imperial College London made this discovery while observing mice. They noticed that when the mice fasted every other day, there was a boost in a substance made by gut bacteria called 3-Indolepropionic acid, or IPA for short. IPA seems to play a role in fixing nerve fibers—those long, string-like parts of nerve cells that send signals around the body.
The really cool thing? The type of bacteria that makes IPA, known as Clostridium sporogenesis, hangs out in our guts too, and we also have IPA in our blood. So, there’s hope that what works for mice might work for us as well.
One of the study’s leads, Professor Simone Di Giovanni, explained that there’s no great solution for nerve damage at the moment, aside from surgery, which doesn’t always work. That’s why they’re looking at lifestyle changes, like fasting, to see if they can help.
Fasting’s Effects on Nerve Healing
The experiment involved mice with damage to their sciatic nerve—that’s the big nerve that runs from your lower back down your legs. Some of the mice fasted every other day, while others could eat whenever they wanted. After either 10 or 30 days of these diets, the sciatic nerve was carefully crushed to simulate damage.
After keeping an eye on the mice for a few days post-injury, the team measured the growth of the nerve fibers. The fasting mice had a 50% better nerve regrowth compared to those that didn’t fast.
This discovery opens up lots of questions. Could there be other beneficial bacteria or substances in our guts that we don’t know about yet? It’s like finding the first piece of a puzzle.
Tracing the Path to Recovery
The team dug deeper to see how fasting led to better nerve recovery. They found that when mice fasted, levels of certain substances in their blood, like IPA, went up a lot.
To pin down IPA’s role, they cleared out the mice’s gut bacteria with antibiotics and then gave them special Clostridium sporogenesis strains. Some could make IPA, and some couldn’t. When IPA was missing, nerve repair didn’t go so well. But when it was there, the nerves healed much better.
Even more intriguing, when they gave the mice IPA directly after nerve injury, they saw improved healing within two to three weeks.
What’s next? The researchers want to see if this works for spinal cord injuries in mice and if giving IPA more often would be even better.
As for us humans, more research is needed to see if fasting boosts IPA in our blood and if this could be a potential treatment for nerve damage.
Professor Di Giovanni is curious if taking IPA several times a day or adding it to a regular diet might help maximize its healing effects. It’s all about figuring out how to help our bodies fix themselves in new and surprising ways.
