Now slowing down ageing, reducing risk of cancer and heart disease is as simple as following a five day diet which mimics fasting.

According to a new research, fasting for 5 days has huge health benefits. Scientists revealed that people can live longer simply by cutting the number of calories they eat by up to half for five days a month.

Academics at the University of Southern California developed a nutritional regime, known as the Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD), which demands five days straight fasting for maximum effect.

According to the creators of the new fasting diet, most of the people would only follow this fasting regime four times a year in order to reduce their risk of heart disease and cancer and to boost their immune system, as well as lose weight and look younger at the same time.

Prof Valter Longo, one of the scientists behind this revolutionary new way of fasting, is Professor in Gerontology and Biological Science at the USC, and Director of its Longevity Institute.

"Strict fasting is hard for people to stick to, and it can also be dangerous,'' Prof Longo told The Telegraph's Victoria Lambert.

''So we developed a complex diet that triggers the same effects in the body," Prof Longo added.

The new research led by Prof Longo that periodically adopting a diet that mirrors fasting (FMD) not only cut visceral belly fat, but also elevate the number of progenitor and stem cells in several organs of old mice including the brain, where it increased neural regeneration and improved learning and memory.

In a pilot human trial, the study looked at 19 adults who for five days a month, cut back their calories by half, or even two-thirds. The researchers accurately planned the nutritional balance of what these subjects ate in order to make sure they did not become malnourished, according to records on News 8.

After three months, blood tests of those who periodically fasted revealed some extremely interesting signs including possible indicators of a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.

Since the study is preliminary, it didn't last long enough to check how the occasional fasters did in the long run. However, the study does provide some enticing clues as to how systematically cutting back might benefits going forward.