The Health Impacts of Fasting During Ramadan

Abstract

Ramadan is the Holy month of fasting that is obligatory for all normal Muslims who reached at their puberty. Two meals are taken during Ramadan, one is taken before down to prepare themselves for fast is called “Sahur”, and second meal is taken at sunset is called “Iftar”. Fasting is not only a ritual and religious obligation while it has several medicinal significances specially against diet dependent diseases. Fasting significantly helped in the reduction of peptic and duodenal ulcers with the combination of H2-blocker drug, help in the improvement of lipid profile specially in TC and HDL and LDL levels that cause heart failure. During fasting the systolic and diastolic blood pressure improve at greater rate as compare to drugs like Indapamide and Perindopril, a strong evidence revealed that ischemic stroke and cancer can also be improved by intermitted fasting through multiple pathways and factors like BDNF, bFGF, GRP78, Hsp70, tyrosine kinase receptor B (TrkB), fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1), and ketosis respectively The aim of this paper is to systematically review the published literature regarding the effect of Ramadan on the above mentioned diseases.

Keywords

• Ramadan
• fasting
• Iftar
• Ischemic stroke
• ketosis