Water Fasting vs. Dry Fasting

It is very easy to get confused about different types of fasting recognized by medical experts as well as numerous variations designed by people. You might hear someone taking benefits from intermittent fasting and some from water or dry fasting. If you are curious to know more about water and dry fasting, this article is for you.

Water Fasting and Dry Fasting

First of all, we should be familiar with the basics of water fasting. It is quite different from intermittent fasting as in water fast. You can drink water for the duration of the fast, usually 24 hours to 72 hours. Medically-supervised water fasts can go on even longer than 72 hours.

Dry fasting means to completely stop eating food and drinking water for the fasting duration. The thought of quitting your diet might seem scary to you, but there are different types of dry fasting, for example, soft dry fast and hard dry fast, which you can adopt. A human body is capable of holding nutrients and fluids for a long period of time, so dry fasting gets easy over time.

Both of these types of fasting have their advantages. However, dry fasting is known to be more beneficial than water fasting. The primary reasons for this fact are that in a dry fast, your body gets the time to reset completely without water and food consumption.

Benefits of Water Fasting and Dry Fasting

Water fasting is beneficial for your body and health in the following ways:

1. The chance of getting chronic diseases like heart diseases, diabetes, and hypertension are reduced through water fasting. According to Science Translational Medicine, chemotherapy is more useful during fasting.
2. Water fast helps maintain healthy cholesterol and blood pressure levels.
3. Leptin and Insulin are the two primary hormones responsible for metabolic reactions. Fasting can increase their sensitivity, increase the metabolism rate, and speed up weight loss.
4. According to the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, high blood pressure can be significantly controlled through water and dry fasting,
5. Water fast can flush out toxins from your body.
6. The digestive system is rested and refreshed through fasting.

Many of the benefits of water fasting listed above can be found in dry fasting as well. However, there are a few benefits exclusive to dry fasters, which are:

1. Dry fasts reduce inflammation in your body and enhance the mucosal lining.
2. Chances of infections and attacks by disease-causing bacteria are reduced.
3. Renew the blood vessels and cells through autophagy.
4. It improves calcium retention and makes bones stronger, preventing osteoporosis.
5. Improves cholesterol control
6. It develops fresh brain cells and speeds up cell repair.

Conclusion

If you are planning to start fasting or move on from the traditional intermittent fasting, water fast and dry fast can be extremely beneficial for you as they provide a wide variety of advantages. You should set a smart and calculated duration of the fast to make sure you are not compromising your health while water fasting or dry fasting.