Valter Longo (Supplied) Photo: Supplied
He’s become the academic poster boy of the intermittent fasting movement. Professor Valter Longo’s work on how the human body behaves when we deprive it of energy has inspired a range of diet books (including his own).
But this is more than just a publishing phenomenon. Cancer patients and oncologists are intrigued in fasting’s potential to improve treatment outcomes, and possibly impede the disease’s spread.
Studies have also shown its apparent ability to allow yeast and other organisms to live longer: so could it one day even be used to extend human life?
Valter Longo's book The Longevity Diet is published by Penguin (ISBN: 1405933941).