A surprise finding from research presented at a medical meeting has called into question the safety of intermittent fasting, a popular strategy to lose weight by limiting food intake to certain times.
The study, which was released in Chicago on Monday, found that limiting mealtimes to eight hours per day resulted in a 91% rise in the probability of death from heart disease. Scientists speculated about the details of the study protocol after the American Heart Association published only an abstract. Other experts reviewed the study before it was released.
New generation of drugs help people shed pounds, and lifestyle interventions aimed at weight loss have come under scrutiny. There were differences between the fasting patients and the comparison group, which consumed food over a daily period of 12 to 16 hours, according to some doctors.
Study finds a link between intermittent fasting and the risk of heart disease death.
Weight loss lifestyle interventions have come under scrutiny.
A baffling finding from a medical conference prompted a concern about the safety of intermittent fasting, a popular method for losing weight by limiting food intake to certain times.
The study, which was released on Monday in Chicago, found that limiting mealtimes to eight hours per day resulted in a 91% rise in the probability of death from heart disease. Researchers speculated about the specifics of the study protocol after the American Heart Association released only an abstract. Other experts reviewed the study before it was released.
New generation of drugs help people shed pounds, and lifestyle interventions aimed at weight loss have come under scrutiny. There were differences in heart health between the fasting patients and the comparison group, whose members ate for 12 to 16 hours per day, according to some medical experts.
Keith Frayn, professor of human metabolism at the University of Oxford, said in a statement to the UK Science Media Center that time-restricted eating is popular as a means of reducing calorie intake. Long-term studies on the effects of this practice are needed, according to this work. Many questions remain unanswered by this abstract.
The researchers analyzed data from about 20,000 adults included in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, led by Victor Zhong of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.
The study examined responses to questionnaires and mortality data from 2003 to 2019. Scientists pointed out that there was a chance of mistakes due to the forms that asked patients to recall what they ate for two days. Half the patients were men, with a median age of 48.
Zhong said it wasn’t clear how long the patients continued the intermittent fasting, though the researchers assumed they kept it up.
He pointed out that those undergoing fasting tend to be younger men with larger waistlines and food scarcity. According to self-reports, they had a lower prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Zhong said that the positive association between 8-h time-restricted eating and cardiovascular mortality remained despite controlling for all these variables in the analysis.
The abstract was presented at the AHA’s Lifestyle Scientific Sessions meeting in Chicago, where it was presented.
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