Scientists find no benefit from intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is a diet that has become popular in recent years, where strict time slots are reserved for eating, while the person does not eat for the rest of the time. In the most common scheme, eight hours are allowed to eat, and the remaining 16 hours are reserved for fasting. Some proponents of this approach believe it allows you to heal the body by triggering self-cleaning processes in the cells, but many simply stick to it for weight loss.

While many proponents of intermittent fasting experience weight loss, it was not entirely clear whether intermittent fasting had any weight loss and health benefits over traditional calorie restriction.

To test this, Chinese scientists at Guangzhou Southern Medical University invited 139 obese volunteers who were randomly divided into two groups. The first took food only from 8:00 to 16:00, the second limited the daily calorie intake to 1500-1800 kcal for men and 1200-1500 kcal for women. Participants were asked to take pictures of each food they ate and to keep a food diary daily for the first six months and three times a week for the next six months. Throughout the experiment, participants were consulted twice as often in the first six months than in the second, both by phone and in person by their healthcare professional. Next, the researchers discovered how the volunteers’ body weight, proportion of adipose tissue, and metabolic risk factors changed. Their results are presented in a journal article. New England Journal of Medicine.

Participants in the first group lost an average of 9.4 kg in the first six months, 8 kg in the second month, 8.9 kg in the second month – the first six months, and 6.3 kg in the second month during the study.

Other than this minor difference, the researchers found no difference—intermittent fasting had no better effect on blood sugar and lipid levels, insulin sensitivity, and blood pressure than traditional calorie restriction. There was also no noticeable difference in the reduction in body mass index and waist circumference. The researchers found no significant differences in fat mass loss, including visceral fat. In fact, the number of fatigue, nausea, abdominal pain and other complaints was equal in both groups.

“Among obese patients, an intermittent fasting regimen was no more effective than daily calorie restriction in reducing body weight, body fat, or metabolic risk factors,” the authors write. “These results suggest that calorie restriction explains most of the benefits seen in time-restricted dieting.”

However, the results also show that intermittent fasting can be used as an alternative weight management option if someone finds this method more convenient.

D., director of nutritional research at the Stanford Center for Prevention Research. “Almost any diet works for some people,” said Christopher Gardner. –

But the main implication of this study is that intermittent fasting is no more beneficial for weight loss and better health than reducing daily calories.

Nutritionist Louis Aronne says intermittent fasting can be used by those who have trouble keeping track of their daily calorie intake.

“While this approach isn’t proven to be any better, it doesn’t look any worse than counting calories,” says Aronne. “This gives patients more room to succeed.”

The researchers note that the effectiveness of intermittent fasting for men and women should be examined separately, as results may differ by gender. Also, it is unknown how intermittent fasting might affect their health, as the study did not include participants with diabetes or cardiovascular disease. Additionally, the researchers did not evaluate physical activity and overall energy expenditure, but it is important that this is done in the future.

The rise in popularity of intermittent fasting is due to research by Japanese microbiologist Yoshinori Ohsumi, for whom he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016.

Osumi discovered the mechanisms of autophagy, a process by which redundant, dysfunctional components of a cell are delivered to the lysosome and vacuoles where they are used. This cleansing is especially enhanced in cases of nutrient deficiencies. This gave rise to the myth that fasting can stimulate intracellular “garbage collection” and heal the body. Osumi later recalled that he never claimed that dietary fasting could promote autophagy in body cells – after all, he experimented with baker’s yeast and did not starve people.

According to another hypothesis, genes that are supposed to speed up metabolism are active during daylight hours. Based on this, it can be assumed that overeating during this period is less harmful than in the evening and at night. However, this study, like a number of smaller studies before, shows that the main role in weight control is played by calorie content, not by time to eat.