starve a cold

I have been doing intermittent fasting for about 2 weeks. During this time my partner got pneumonia. I tend to get bronchitis or pneumonia myself once a year or every other year so I was worried I was next inline to get sick but I kept fasting and waited for my sickness to come. I did eventually get sick after taking care of my partner but it took 5 days and I have very mild symptoms sore throat a little tired but nothing like my partner. Is the old saying starve a cold true? Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Answer

Isn’t the saying feed a cold, starve a fever…?

Anyway, sounds like an old wive’s tale. I don’t think IF really has much to do with getting over a cold faster. I mean, anything is possible and the body is really complicated, but you probably won’t find any hard evidence.

Answer

I’m too tired/lazy to look it up now, but I read an article about fasting and chemotherapy, if I recall it was a small study, anyway-it said basically that ppl that fasted the days prior to chemo/radiation had less severe effects/symptoms then ppl who did not fast. Something to do with the body’s ability to regenerate, probably the whole autophagy…I’m sure you can find that article somewhere on line, but according to that and also early fathers of medicine fasting is the cure to all illness or something to that shocking effect 😅