Intermittent fasting is a popular strategy to lose weight by limiting food intake to certain times. The safety of intermittent fasting was called into question by a surprise finding from research presented at a medical meeting.
According to a study released on Monday in Chicago, limiting mealtimes to a period of just eight hours a day was linked to a 91% increase in the risk of death from heart disease. The American Heart Association (AHA) published only an abstract, which leaves scientists assuming about the details of the study protocol. According to the AHA, the study was reviewed by other experts prior to its release.
Lifestyle interventions aimed at weight loss have come under analysis since new generations of drugs help people shed weight. Some doctors questioned the findings of the study, saying they could have been skewed by differences, such as underlying heart health, between the fasting patients and the comparison group, who consumed food over a daily period of 12 to 16 hours.
Keith Frayn, who is an emeritus professor of human metabolism at the University of Oxford, added a statement to the UK Science Media Center. It is said that time-restricted eating is popular as a means of reducing calorie intake. Keith Frayn further added that "this work is very important in showing that we need long-term studies on the effects of this practice. But this abstract leaves many questions unanswered".
The senior study author is Victor Wenze Zhong, Ph.D., a professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China. The researchers, led by Zhong, compared data about dietary patterns for participants in the annual 2003–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) to death data from 2003–2019 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Death Index.
The study included approximately 20,000 adults in the U.S. with an average age of 49 years.
According to Zhong, it wasn't clear how long the patients continued the intermittent fasting, though the researchers assumed they kept it up.
Zhong further added that they were surprised to find that people who followed an 8-hour, time-restricted eating schedule were more likely to die from cardiovascular disease. Even though this type of diet has been popular due to its potential short-term benefits, our research clearly shows that, compared with a typical eating time range of 12–16 hours per day, a shorter eating duration was not associated with living longer.
The abstract was presented in Chicago at the AHA's Lifestyle Scientific Sessions meeting.
(Input from various sources)
(Rehash/Komal Bhoi/MSM)