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The surprising cause of fasting's regenerative powers
Post-fast feasting helps to activate stem cells in the gut but can also prompt development of precancerous growths, mouse research shows.
But this activation of stem cells came at a price: mice were more likely to develop precancerous polyps in their intestines if they incurred a cancer-causing genetic change during the post-fasting period than if they hadn’t fasted at all. These results, published in Nature on 21 August, show that “regeneration isn’t cost-free”, says Emmanuelle Passegué, a stem-cell biologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, who wasn’t involved in the study. Instead, Longo says that the results of the Nature study could help identify ways to perform coordinated cellular regeneration to repair damaged tissues, such as those in people with inflamed colons or Crohn’s disease.
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