Talk:Fasting

Deleted dead link

Link to Darfur fast was dead. If it still exists someone should post the correct address

Grammatical Error

In the article, the phrase "fat is converted into ketone" under 'Health effects' is scientifically incorrect. A correct alternative would be "fat is converted into ketone bodies" as the word 'ketone' essentially signifies a type of organic compounds and not a specific or certain compound. In this case, the fatty acids are broken down into compounds that are ketone groups known as 'ketone bodies'. ~hb2007 15:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hb2007 (talk • contribs)

Fixed, thank you. - 2/0 (cont.) 22:15, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Water before Blood test?

Hey Guys, I just thinking that if you are allow to drink water before a blood test (even though you are required to fast for 12 hours)? McAusten (talk) 01:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on what the blood test is for, but for most things it shouldn't be a problem. Your kidneys regulates the concentration of most substances in the blood pretty closely, so when you drink a lot of water, you wind up excreting it pretty quickly, so i don't think it will skew tests for concentration of a given substance. Also, one of the more common tests for which you would need to fast beforehand is a fasting blood glucose test- allows the doctor to monitor certain aspects of your metabolism. The results for that would only be affected by foods that contain energy that your body can use and so wouldn't be affected by water.

I really don't think this belongs on a Wikipedia discussion page- there are plenty of health forums on the internet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.100.7 (talk) 19:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

biblical references

The Old Testament references should not be in the Christianity section, since they are relevant to both Christianity and Judaism. Perhaps this should be reorganized with a "Biblical references" section immediately followed by the sections on Christianity and Judaism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.67.100.7 (talk) 19:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Health Effects - Dispute - unable to find good sources - despite not having good sources, all sources seem to say that body starts breaking down muscle before fat - the wikipedia article doesn't site any sources regarding this - what is the truth???

This is regarding the following quoted text in the "Health Effects" section, "... If glucose is still denied at this point, muscle wasting is prevented by temporarily switching to fat as the fuel source, meaning fat is converted into ketone bodies through catabolism. Ketones, while not sugars, can be used by the brain as a fuel source as long as glucose is denied. The body continues to use fat for as long as there is fat to consume. The body will generally indicate to the faster when fat levels are running extremely low..."

My friend was trying to tell me that the body tends to burn muscle first before fast when responding to starvation, and they disputed the statements made in the article under discussion. Upon a google search, no really great sources could be found about this, and many sources say that muscle is burned first, however I suspect this may be a myth because some of the more reliable sources actually say that fat is burned first and acknowledge the dispute as well.

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starvation_response#Process says that fat from adipose tissue is broken down into glycerol and fatty acids (it does not site any sources either!!!) and fatty acids cannot be used by the brain as a fuel, which is different and maybe exclusively true in relation to what is said in this article.

Anyways, this section sites absolutely no sources - along with the fact that no great sources could be found by me about this means that this article needs to be improved in this way. BriEnBest (talk) 19:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)