Book excerpt: Fasting: we’ve all heard of it. Countless celebrities and bestselling books have touted the benefits of fasting for weight loss, but what most of us don’t know is that the benefits of fasting extend far beyond that: the latest scientific findings show that fasting is the best and easiest way for us to fight disease and slow aging. In The Fasting Fix, Dr. Andreas Michalsen—one of the world’s leading experts on fasting—lays out the clear, indisputable science that fasting, when combined with a healthy diet, is the key to healing chronic illnesses and living longer. Dr. Michalsen draws from his decades of medical practice and original, cutting-edge scientific research, along with his deep knowledge about the human body and evolutionary history, to distill the simple truth about what and how we should eat in order to live healthier, longer lives. Learn which foods to eat and which we should avoid. And learn the specific fasting program—therapeutic fasting, intermittent fasting, or a combination of both—that will most benefit your specific lifestyle and health needs. With stories from patients he has successfully treated and detailed treatment programs for the most common chronic diseases—obesity, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, arthrosis, rheumatism, irritable bowel syndrome, skin diseases, allergies and asthma, migraines, depression, neurological diseases, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer—Dr. Michalsen shows us why other diets have failed, and how we can finally be healthy.