Does fasting actually have health benefits?

[paulpablo]

This is something many religionists love to yell about yet they only ever utter statements and don't provide any evidence (as is usual for religious claims). I'm sure there have been studies on fasting, but I can't imagine going for an entire day without drinking or eating is healthy. I'm sure a lot of people could cut down on the food intake, but it seems counter productive to dehydrate yourself. I've heard that drinking water often makes you feel less hungry.

If I remember rightly, if you starve yourself you will then be reaching for unhealthy foods when you finally decide to start eating again. That's why you have to be so careful when going on a diets because many diets are actually bad for you. If there have been any studies on fasting, I wonder if the Saudis or some other nefarious entity had a hand in their creation.

There's obviously some cases when it definitely is harmful, I listened to an audiobook called freakonomics which was talking about why it's better to be born at different times in different parts of the world.  And it said women giving birth in a muslim part of the world at a certain time kept giving birth to deaf babies and it was because they were fasting during pregnancy. 

I think these days Muslims have added extra precautions to the quran as usual.  Like the other verses where they add things in brackets next to them to make them look more reasonable, beat your wife (only lightly) everyone who disbelieves the quran will burn repeatedly (if they read and fully understand the quran) make sure you fast during Ramadan (only if you really feel like you can do)

The quran itself actually only excuses travelling or ill people from fasting and doesn't mention pregnancy.  Any excuse for a pregnant woman to not fast was created by Muslims after the quran from what I can tell.