I deeply encourage people to read the science. And indeed all of it.

As you said: Maybe they exist. They probably do – if the substrate of under-funding things has allowed them to come into existence. There are studies that show general health benefits from intermittent fasting as I recall.

It’s also worth paying attention to one’s experience of the world, and to not discredit it. There’s a distinction between following a fad, preferring a lifestyle, wanting to feel good about it – in a social sense I guess? …versus, say, noticing a sense of clarity whole watching one’s bloodwork results improve.

Read papers. Mostly science. Not too carefully.

Mechanistic ones too. Mechanistic ones too! From personal experience, I ask you to believe me when I give insulin glargine as a clear example of the molecular biology of something clearly showing that a certain medicine is literally dangerous. The zoomed-out general health studies smooth over the substance’s obvious capacity to abruptly flow out of bolus sites and dump 24 hours’ worth of insulin into the bloodstream. It’s obvious from the molecular biology and the anecdotes of horrible blood sugar crashes and people dying in their sleep. Please don’t take too much salt with the mechanistic studies. It’s mechanics all the way down.