The Muslim tradition of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan may provide insight into the human body’s metabolic processes, offering new clues into how obesity and type 2 diabetes develop, say researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar.
In a study published last month in the Journal of Translational Medicine, 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,” said Dr. Karsten Suhre, professor of physiology and biophysics and director of the Bioinformatics Core at WCMC-Q, whose laboratory oversaw the study. “For instance, many Muslim patients with diabetes observe fasting at Ramadan, 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 behavior of metabolites, complicating doctors’ efforts to make accurate diagnoses for diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity.
In a pilot study conducted in 2009 with collaborators in Germany, the investigators found that Ramadan’s religious precepts established a natural setting for the function of metabolites during an extended fast. They hope the pilot study can serve as a starting point for a large-scale study conducted during a future Ramadan.
“This type of regulated and universal fasting presents significant opportunities for coordinated enrollment of study participants and administration of a controlled meal,” said lead author Sweety Mathew, senior project coordinator in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at WCMC-Q. “This has great potential for returning very useful results.”