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I have read about a
lot of research done on the Ramadan fast on blood lipid levels
and, it has been shown that fasting reduced serum cholesterol
while raising the good cholesterol. This result was obtained
in many of the studies conducted and, one that I am quoting is
titled:
Effect of Ramadan
Fasting on Lipid Peroxidation, Serum Lipoproteins and Fasting
Blood Sugar done in the Isfahan Universirty of Medical
Sciences on 50 healthy subjects.
One of the things frequently pointed out to be negative is the
dehydration that is caused by not taking any fluids from sun
up to sundown, but in actual fact this also has been proven to
be of possible benefit:
Quoting from a
magazine article: at this URL
http://www.saisamachar.com/saipranaam/nov02/health.htm
Abstinence from water during this period is not bad at all and
in fact, it causes concentration of all fluids within the
body, producing slight dehydration. The body has its own water
conservation mechanism; in fact, it has been shown that slight
dehydration and water conservation, at least in plant life,
improve their longevity.
For the effects of fasting on the blood sugar, again a lot of
research has been done on this, and the results may differ
with different research but a consensus may be reached that it
is generally beneficial. In my clinic though I do not see it
to be so, most probably because we find that during Ramadan,
many people will take to drinking sweetened water and syrups!
When I was studying in another Muslim country which I will not
mention, I was shocked to find out that my landlord, a family
of 4 adults, actually consumed one kilogram of sugar in 2 days
during Ramadan because of extra sweetmeats they prepared! There were many other things I
found rather weird and among them, day became night, night became day,
people stayed up to eat and talk the whole night and in the day time they mostly
slept! I think in some places schools were closed and work was
cut to a minimum. I am of the opinion that all these practices
actually negate the beneficial effects of fasting and am happy
to say it is not the custom here in Malaysia where people
would spend the earlier part of the night in group prayers and
then sleep, waking early for the pre dawn meal, more prayers
and Quran reading while in the day time it is work as usual.
Another common problem is gastritis! I have mentioned about
taking hot chili and spices and said that it is not a very
wise choice of food for breaking the fast! Neither are
caffeine drinks, especially if one is sensitive to caffeine. I
find that a cup of coffee or tea an hour or so after breaking
the fast is not too harmful for the average person but
for the sensitive person it is enough to cause a digestive
upset as well as insomnia or, in the case of tea, the tannin
content in the tea may cause constipation to a bowel that is
already sluggish from the reduced peristalsis caused by the
fast! A very good drink for breaking the fast would be a tea
made from fresh ginger! What I do is take fresh young ginger
and crush it, and add hot water and honey and a little
limejuice, or lemon juice. It helps digestion and is a very
soothing drink to take after a fast. I know fresh young ginger
may not be too easy to find in the West though and ginger
powder may have to do but won' t taste as good! This drink is
one my grandmother used to make and I remember drinking it
every fasting month when I was a child. I have revived the
tradition in my own home, and have also found out that ginger
heals many minor digestive complaints!
Other simple solutions
to hyperacidity may be Magnesium Trisilicate, which can be
bought at the pharmacy. It has the added advantage of being
mildly laxative which helps in the fasting month! Read
labels and do not buy anything that contains aluminium. We get
enough from aluminium foils and aluminium cans and do not need an extra
dose of it! Aluminium has been implicated in Alzheimer's disease and one should
avoid any antacid that contains aluminium and mind you, many
actually do.
There is an effect
of experiencing a high from eating even from 2 days of fasting the Muslim
way. I think this would be difficult to explain
to people who have not experienced this high! When we are
eating every day and eating very regularly, I think we
sometimes get to the point that the eating does not seem to be
contributing to our energy. I have often felt tired and even
sluggish especially when there had been too many dinner invitations,
and the food was so delicious that one tended to overindulge.
I have found my own cure for this and that is to fast, and to
break my fast with light foods for at least 2 days! What we
will experience is that the first day of the fast is very
difficult, I would feel very tired and my whole body would
ache, my head would ache and I would not be in a very good
mood! On the second day, I would feel less tired, and my body
would start to feel better, I would be mild mannered and
sweet, even though I would feel tired! And then when I have a
normal day on the third day starting with breakfast in the
morning, what would happen is that I would feel great! I would
have a lot of energy, I would be vivacious and full of life.
My digestion would have improved, food would taste great but a
little bit would be enough and after a meal there would be a
surge of energy and a sense of well being that would have been
absent before the fast.
For a month long fast, it is the same but, on an extended
scale! There are several differences in routine that happens
when we fast and that is that we have to sleep less, because
of the pre dawn meal and prayers. It would help to sleep early
but usually what happens is that after breaking the fast in
the evening, there is so much energy that one does not feel
like sleeping early and would use the time for reading and
prayers or talking or doing a hundred and one things that one
did not feel like doing in the day time while fasting! This
does not always happen though, if one has taken too much food when breaking the fast, what happens is an
extreme lethargy and sleepiness and you may find yourself
sleeping right after breaking the fast so if you do not want
to go to sleep after breaking the fast, make sure you do not
fill your stomach to the brim! It is also not a commendable
thing to do!
The Prophet's instructions on eating are
very simple, "Eat when hungry and do not eat until you
feel full. There should be one third of your stomach with
food, one third with liquid and, one-third with air!"
The wonderful thing though that you will find is, that after
some time, you will not need so much sleep and can make do with less
sleep. This seems to be a result of eating less!
As I have said previously, when fasting the stomach and
intestines become somewhat more sensitive than they are when
we are eating all the time. What this means is that foods we
react to will have a greater amplitude of the same reaction we
have while not fasting. A far as supplements are concerned,
the more concentrated ones may not agree very much with the
digestion while fasting so for most people, it would be best
to cut down supplements to the minimum.
As for those on medications, here are the adjustments that may
be needed:
Diabetics on hypoglycaemics or insulin: When fasting the blood
glucose level will go down so if you take a dose during the
pre dawn meal, you may go into hypoglycaemia in the day time.
Symptoms would include vertigo, cold sweating and feeling
faint. I usually advise my patients to take their daily dose
during the evening meal. Those who take 2 dose a day will need adjustment of the predawn
dose. A reduced dose may also be needed. Monitoring blood
glucose levels while fasting would help in the adjustments,
involve your doctor in the adjustments. As for
antihypertensives, it is probably ok to stick to the
medication as before, those taking medication 3 times a day
may need to change to longer acting versions of the drugs
they are taking. Again talking to your doctor is going to help
make the adjustments.
Antibiotics: Anybody
who needs antibiotics while fasting should request for the
antibiotics with a daily or twice daily dose. It would be a
bit problematic to try to take 3 daily doses at night and not possible to
adjust the dosing! Some antibiotics can cause crystals in the
urine and cause pain when urinating because of the no intake
of water in the daytime. As such, please inform your doctor
you are fasting and ask the doctor not to give such
antibiotics. Those who are prone to urine infections may take
urine alkalinizers, which are sold over the counter in
pharmacies. Cornsilk and barley drinks would also be helpful
to take.
I have mentioned about
constipation: Vegetables and other complex carbohydrate foods
are essential. Mild constipation can be dealt with by taking
fibre preparations like psyllium husks, and there are some
fruits like prunes and tamarind juice that can also help.
Other than this there are some mild preparations like Forlax
that are very
safe to take when absolutely necessary. The other alternative
is to go for enemas. Constipation should not be allowed to
continue, as it will reduce the detox effect of the fast. The
liver cannot unload its accumulated waste products if the
person is constipated. Avoid tea because it contains tannin,
which is astringent and tends to cause constipation if you are
constipated. Those taking NSAID, ie painkillers may have much
more gastric irritation on these and, if they have sensitive
stomachs should change to less irritating drugs which your
doctor will tell you about. It may cost more than the usual
NSAID s that you are taking. Eg, you may change
from diclofenac sodium a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory to a
cox 2 inhibitor like meloxicam.
You may however want to try
alternative treatment and now may be a good time to make the
switch! The fasting time is also the best time to deal with
your drug and food addictions! Since smokers and caffeine
drinkers have to abstain while fasting, they will find that it
gets much easier to keep delaying the coffee or cigarettes
until they don' t drink it or smoke it and it is time to fast
again! Those who are really heavy smokers may need a little
bit more help from the doctor by going on a nicotine
patch or some other aids to stopping smoking. Many have asked
me about taking injections. In general, injections according
to the clerics I have consulted are allowed while fasting, and
there should not be a problem with this. Having said this,
painkillers are still excreted to the stomach and taking such
an injection on an empty stomach may cause a gastric
irritation.
Other issues I have seen raised about fasting is
physical activities and sports. Naturally these activities
will cause the person to sweat and become dehydrated so what
happens when you sweat and cannot drink any fluids? I have
done exercise and aerobic dancing while fasting and am none the
worse for it. What I do is to have these activities in the
late afternoon, about an hour or so before the time for breaking
the fast. In this way there is not much of a delay in
replenishing the water in the body. There is a possibility of
feeling a bit dizzy while exercising, this is not harmful and
is due to the lower blood pressure of the faster.
As for bathing, many fasters avoid bathing after 12 noon when
fasting because they say it is makruh, ie not recommended and
will reduce the rewards of the fasting since it refreshes the
tired body and therefore makes the suffering less! But
practically speaking, bathing every day and scrubbing with a
sponge will very much help the body to detox since all the
fasting is going to move toxins into the organs of elimination
which are the large intestine including the liver, the
kidneys, the lungs and the skin via the sweat glands and the
skin cells! By removing the dead skin cells, which
contain the toxin, we allow the skin to send more of the stuff
it wants to remove via the skin! So one of the benefits of the
fast will be a lovely clear complexion! Not to worry if
in the beginning the skin throws out pimples and other
eruptions, this does sometimes happen before the skin clears!
But the skin will not clear unless you do not eat that foods
that aggravate eruptions, like nuts and chocolates!
Another tip I would like to share is to carry a drinking
bottle, make sure it is one that is not easy to spill, when
you go for the tarawih prayers. This way you can drink in
between the prayers and rehydrate yourself better. You will
notice your throat get very dry while saying the tarawih, if
you have neglected to bring your drinking water along!
There is a little bit I would like to address about the
emotional and mental effects of fasting. There are my own
observations and bits and pieces I have heard or read
somewhere and cannot make references to ..this is the reason I
cannot write scholarly papers, a lot of what I say is mere
heresay and anecdotal! A talk I attended just before the fast
made a point about the fast. Now this advise is by some holy
person and as usual I cannot remember who but, something
clicked when I heard the advise. The advise is, stop what you do as a routine in your life, forget
about that extra ironing that you do, vacuum the house less,
spend less time on the computer, CHANGE your routine in
whatever way you can and, do beneficial things you never had
the time for! Read that motivational book that you have bought
a few months ago and never had the time for, read the Quran
and make sure you ponder over the meanings. MAKE ROOM in your
life for new things by removing from it the stuff that is
keeping away the new things that are needed in your life. Your
mind is clear when you fast, because the energy spent on digesting food, is now not being
expended
and is available to your brain. The emotional support you get
from the sense of togetherness, the breaking of the fast with
the family, the increased consciousness about keeping away the
negative, makes this an ideal time to reflect, to think and to
grow in our realisations besides the extra prayers that we do.
I always need my inward looking time and it is quite easy to be caught in group activities and forget to look inwards at
this time, but it would be a waste not to use this time for
that inner spring cleaning!
I have had some questions asked to me and will address them
now before ending this series on the Muslim fast and our body.
One person asked me what to do if one is underweight and will
lose a lot of needed weight when fasting! Some people
have very high body metabolism and tend to lose weight even
when eating well. The ones I know who are like this are very
healthy in other ways except that they look like they have not
eaten for weeks! I would suggest to take extra high
calorie meal replacements after the usual meals as a drink in
between the 2 main meals and to take another supper snack an
hour before sleeping. Take more fat, nuts are a good source of
fat and snack on dried fruits and nuts at night. Please make sure you know your cholesterol levels
before undertaking to eat more fat. There are some pretty thin individuals who may have
raised cholesterol levels and raised ldl cholesterol (bad
cholesterol) and low hdl (good cholesterol).
Another person asked me what I think of the traditional way
some people take extra large meals with lots of goodies during
the fasting month, much more than they usually eat and this
person said he actually gained weight in the fasting month! I
think this is a very unhealthy way to fast and would be
harmful in the long run as well as it negates many of the
benefits, both physical, emotional and spiritual.
Ramadan Mubarak! May you have the best fast possible and
emerge from the fasting month renewed and victorious over your
nafs, healthier in mind body and soul!
Suriya Osman
Medical Doctor, Sufi Healing teacher and Homeopath
email me at
suriya56@crosswinds.net
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