Twice-monthly fasting (Ekādaśī) is sometimes linked to the 2016 'self-eating cell' Nobel.
Ekādaśī — observance of fasting on the eleventh lunar day of each fortnight — is a long-standing devotional practice across many Hindu traditions.
— Padma Purāṇa & Skanda Purāṇa (Ekādaśī-māhātmya)
Autophagy (Yoshinori Ohsumi, 2016 Medicine Nobel) and the documented metabolic benefits of intermittent fasting.
A popular claim that doesn't hold up — here's the honest story.
Intermittent fasting genuinely has measurable benefits, and prolonged fasting can up-regulate autophagy — the cellular 'self-cleaning' process for which Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel. So a card claiming 'Ekādaśī = autophagy, the Ṛṣis knew' looks compelling.
Here's the honest version. First, the purpose of Ekādaśī is spiritual — devotion, self-discipline, turning the mind to the Divine — not metabolic engineering; any physical benefit is a side-effect, not the design. Second, the science doesn't map cleanly: meaningful autophagy typically needs longer fasting windows than a traditional Ekādaśī (which often permits fruit, milk or water), so the specific 'this triggers autophagy' claim is shaky. The defensible statement is modest and still nice: periodic fasting is a healthy practice, and a tradition that institutionalised regular fasting was, incidentally, encouraging something good for the body. The Nobel-grade claim, though, is more meme than medicine.