ISLAMABAD: The Muslims tradition of fasting during the Holy month of Ramazan may provide insight into the human body’s metabolic processes, offering new clues into how obesity and type 2 diabetes develop, Researchers said.
According to a study aired on private news channel, the Researchers suggest that the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which observers abstain from eating and drinking from dawn to sunset, may offer a unique opportunity to study on a cellular level and in a controlled setting just what happens to the human body during extended fasting and after that fast is broken.
Researchers hope this information will help them better understand the molecular underpinnings of metabolic diseases, and establish better diagnostic tools to catch them earlier in their progression.
“The ability to enroll large numbers of people who are already fasting into metabolomics studies is extremely useful and could lead to some very significant new discoveries,” Professor of Physiology and Biophysics and Director of the Bioinformatics Core at WCMC-Q, Dr Karsten Suhre said, whose laboratory oversaw the study.
“For instance, many Muslim patients with diabetes observe fasting at Ramazan, which presents very valuable opportunities to study the disease under conditions that are usually very difficult to find.”
Small molecules called metabolites are involved in many essential, life-sustaining metabolic processes, including breaking down food for energy and harvesting proteins from food to build tissues, such as muscles.
They can also play a role in metabolic diseases, with doctors using their concentrations as biomarkers on which they can base a diagnosis. Eating food changes the behaviour of metabolites, complicating doctors’ efforts to make accurate diagnosis for diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.
