Dr. Pradhan has partnered with Prolon and L-Nutra which was founded by Dr. Valter Longo, author of The Longevity Diet and Fasting Cancer. Prolon has 5-day FMD programs (fasting mimicking diets) to help you achieve the reset you need, and L-Nutra has long (12-month) programs for metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Dr. Pradhan completed her first FMD this year, January 2026, and while it was hard, it felt good to do something like that for her body.
Dr. Pradhan first learned about Dr. Longo’s work from his company’s booth at the ACLM (American College of Lifestyle Medicine) conference in 2023, and it was eye-opening.
Longevity has now become buzzwords as well as the words life-span (how long you will live) versus health-span (how healthy you will be the years you are alive). The shift in the longevity field has been towards increasing health-span especially by reducing the burden of chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. Previously thought to be irreversible, these diseases can be treated and with continued effort, reversed!
Dr. Longo’s book The Longevity Diet, goes into the science behind why the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD) is effective as well as other recommendations which change as we age to maintain good health. Dr. Pradhan is excited to get his new book, Fasting Cancer, in the mail and read about how FMD can be used to help additionally treat cancer with modern chemo and immunotherapies.
Basic Frequently Asked Questions:
- What is fasting?
- Fasting is the absence of food for a period of time. It has long been a part of many cultures during different times of the year. You naturally fast overnight following your circadian rhythm unless you wake up overnight to eat. Therefore, most of us fast for 8-12 hours depending on when you last ate prior to sleep and when you first eat anything with calories in the morning.
- What are the types of fasting?
- Intermittent fasting is extending our natural circadian rhythm fast to a longer, more structured fast. Dr. Jason Fung and his book, The Obesity Code popularized these. There are the common 12:12 fasts where you eat for 12 hours and fast for 12 hours (for example 8 pm to 8 am) which are good for weight maintenance. Another common fast is the 16:8 or 18:6 fast which has 16-18 hours of fasting and eating for the rest of the day, for example, skipping breakfast so your eating window is 12-8 pm or 12-6 pm.
- Other types of fasts include the 5:2 fast where you fast 2 days a week (not consecutive) or eat less than 500 calories for women and 600 calories for men.
- Periodic or prolonged fasts of 2-3 days or more where you only drink water. These can be difficult to adhere to and that’s where Prolon comes in.
- Why should I fast?
- There are numerous publications showing fasting can help cellular renewal (autophagy) which can in turn help longevity. You and your doctor can decide if fasting is right for you. “The Discovery of Autophagy won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2016.”
- How can Prolon help?
- Prolon is a structured 5-day fasting-mimicking diet where you receive a 5-day kit to help you eat the right foods to simulate fasting for 5 days and help achieve the reset your body may need.
Explore the links above and reach out if you’re interested in learning more about Lifestyle Medicine as well as Prolon and the FMD discussed above.
The Rochester Lifestyle Medicine Institute is hosting a Lifestyle Medicine Grand Rounds on Tuesday, February 17th at 7:30 pm EST with Dr. Kerry Graff about “Using a Fasting Mimicking Diet for Cancer Prevention: When Is It Appropriate?” It also offers 1 CME credit for clinicians.
