Protocol
Fasting-mimicking diet (ProLon-style 5-day cycles)
FMD · ProLon · Fasting mimicking diet · FMD cycles
There is genuine randomised human trial evidence, which puts FMD ahead of most longevity protocols, but the strongest claims are the weakest supported. The anchor trial (Wei et al., Sci Transl Med 2017) showed improvements in cardiometabolic risk markers after three monthly cycles in generally healthy adults. The most clinically solid result is a 12-month randomised trial in Dutch primary care (van den Burg et al., Diabetologia 2024) showing reduced medication need and improved glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes. A phase 2 randomised trial (DIRECT, Nat Commun 2020) tested FMD alongside neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer, and a 2026 Nature Medicine RCT tested it in mild-to-moderate Crohn's disease. What the evidence does NOT show: no trial has demonstrated an effect on mortality, incident disease, or any hard longevity outcome. The widely marketed "2.5 years younger" figure comes from Brandhorst et al. (Nat Commun 2024), which was a secondary and exploratory analysis of blood samples from two prior trials, with 61 of 100 enrolled participants completing the protocol, and whose own abstract describes the findings as preliminary. Biological-age clocks are surrogate measures, not outcomes. Much of the trial literature originates from or is connected to the Longo group and L-Nutra, the company that sells ProLon, and independent replication of the ageing claims is thin. Marketing on ProLon's own site ("the only program to trigger autophagy in humans", "reduce your biological age") materially overstates what the trials establish. NEGATIVE FINDING on regional availability: no Singapore or Australian clinic on the supplied lists was found advertising FMD or ProLon on its own site. Chi Longevity, the closest SG candidate, lists gut health, glucose, biological age snapshot, weight management and gene-based nutrition programmes, with no fasting-mimicking protocol. Do not publish an SG or AU availability claim without direct clinic-page confirmation. NOTE ON METHOD: this session's live web search budget was exhausted before I could query the HSA and TGA sites directly. Both regulatory fields are therefore returned as null rather than guessed. The only regulatory statement I retrieved is US-specific: ProLon's own site carries the standard FDA disclaimer that its statements are not FDA-evaluated and the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent disease, and describes its ingredients as GRAS. That indicates a food-supplement framing in the US and says nothing verifiable about HSA or TGA classification.
At a glance
- Evidence
- Clinical
- Singapore (HSA)
- No HSA position on file
- Australia (TGA)
- No TGA position on file
- Offered at
- No clinic on file
Singapore
Health Sciences Authority
- HSA status
- No position on file
- In our SG set
- Not tracked in Singapore
- SG clinics
- None on file
Australia
Therapeutic Goods Administration
- TGA status
- No position on file
- In our AU set
- Not tracked in Australia
- AU clinics
- None on file
Evidence is not approvalAn evidence grade describes how strong the science is. A regulatory status describes whether a body has approved the intervention for an indication. They are different questions, answered separately above.
What it is
Plain-language explainer
A fasting-mimicking diet is a five-day packaged, low-calorie, low-protein, plant-based meal programme designed to reproduce some of the metabolic signatures of a prolonged water fast while the person continues to eat. ProLon, developed out of Valter Longo's group at USC, is the best-known commercial version and is typically used in monthly cycles, most often three consecutive cycles. It is sold as a nutrition programme and is claimed to trigger autophagy, improve cardiometabolic markers, and reduce biological age.
Categories
Protocol
Keep reading
Related coverage from the newsroom.
Sources
What this profile is built on
- Fasting-mimicking diet causes hepatic and blood markers changes indicating reduced biological age and disease risk (Brandhorst et al., 2024) · Nature Communications / PubMed
- PubMed: randomised clinical trials of the fasting-mimicking diet (47 results, incl. Wei 2017 Sci Transl Med PMID 28202779; van den Burg 2024 Diabetologia PMID 38546821; DIRECT 2020 Nat Commun PMID 32576828) · PubMed / US National Library of Medicine
- PubMed: fasting-mimicking diet and biological age (26 results) · PubMed / US National Library of Medicine
- Fasting Mimicking Diet (ProLon product and claims page, incl. FDA disclaimer) · L-Nutra / ProLon
- Services and programmes · Chi Longevity (Singapore)
Every entity profile on variis is sourced. Not medical advice.