Lifestyle changes, nutrition, and supplements for hep b

[ThomasTu]

@catcher.007

I am new to hepb community and this is my first post and I hope I am using this correctly.
I have been interested in fasting/intermitten fasting/fast mimicking diet for hep b patients.
I might have come across an article stating that fasting is harmful for hep b patients so I am curious.

What do you think?

I am relatively healthy and have been on treatments for decades. (lamivudine, adefovir, tenofovir, vemlidy) They all worked. Just kept changing because newer drugs came out.

My only issue is a high cholesterol. My diet is mostly plant based, I don’t have a rare disease of having a high cholesterol yet, it is on the higher side around 200. (it used to be 245 before I began plant based diet about 2 years ago). US standard is that less than 150 is good enough but according to some heart experts, it should really be less than around 60. My hep b specialist told me not to worry about my total cholesterol level because the ratio of total/ldl is 2.7 which is low enough. (low ratio = healty/good). But I’m still always wondering to learn more if I could improve my situation.

Because of my high cholesterol level, I became super interested in plant based diet and fasting.

I am particulary interested in fasting because of cell rejuvenation and atophagy, but given my condition of hep b and having a low bmi level of 17.8, I would not be a good candidate for fasting.

Is fasting harmful for hep b carriers with my condition?

I would appreciate any comments and thoughts on this topic.

Hi @catcher.007,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your question.

It is difficult to say whether short-term fasting is good or not for Hep B as there haven’t been that many studies on it.

The hepatitis B foundation has some resources on fasting and how it can be harmful in some circumstances: Is Fasting Safe for People Living with Hepatitis B? - Hepatitis B Foundation

It is best to talk to your doctor about this first.

Cheers,
Thomas