Fasting Increases Human Growth Hormone and Speeds the Metabolism

Fasting increases human growth hormone and raises your metabolism.

Did you know fasting increases your body’s release of growth hormone (GH) and raises your metabolism? “But wait,” you say, “this is contrary to everything I’ve heard about how I should eat 6 times a day to stoke my metabolism. Aren’t I supposed to begin popping frosted cocoa bombs into my mouth the moment my feet hit the floor to keep my body from going into starvation mode?”

It turns out that it’s relatively easy to measure both the release of GH in the body as well as resting metabolism. So let’s examine some research. 

The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism published a study that showed “a 5-fold increase in the 24-h endogenous GH production rate.”¹ In other words, after participants had fasted for 24 hours, their bodies’ production of growth hormone had increased to five times the baseline.