Fasting is a dietary practice as old as life itself. It has been part of many cultures since time immemorial and is still practiced today. A good example is the case of Ramadan, when religious reasons come into play. However, the use of fasting has reached a new level. For therapeutic purposes, intermittent fasting has been postulated as a healthy diet that has gained some notoriety in recent years. One of its main advantages is help in losing weight. It looks like a box, doesn’t it? If you don’t eat, you lose weight. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, as limiting meal times raises a number of important questions for the scientific community. It’s actually not entirely clear if intermittent fasting works for everyone.
Like all promising diets, there are a lot of people who go crazy excessive with intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting gurus abound online like the Egyptian plague at its best. How can we protect ourselves from them? Is it possible to highlight the benefits of intermittent fasting without getting high? In order to try to achieve this, we are going to analyze a recent scientific study that came up with some very interesting findings on this edible item.
What is intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting consists of limit on the hours we can use to eat during the day. There are different types of intermittent fasting, depending on the number of hours we go without food. However, the most common option is 16/8 due to its simplicity and beginner-friendliness. It basically consists of a 16-hour fast – many of which coincide with our sleep hours – and eating only in a band of 8 hours a day. This period usually includes skipping breakfast or dinner, at least at the usual set times.
Otherwise intermittent fasting does not involve big food antics: the time you can eat is just limited. For example, if we last ate at 10:00 pm and didn’t eat anything until 2:00 pm the next day, then we already had it. How many times have you done intermittent fasting without realizing it? Surely in your time of university madness more than once. Well no. Drink calories are also taken into account, and there are not so few of them.
Otherwise, the practice of intermittent fasting is highly praised for its potential health benefitssuch as better control of insulin and glucose releases in the body. Prevention of cardiovascular disease is also suggested through the successful regulation of blood pressure and other metabolic parameters, such as lower total cholesterol and greater presence of “good” cholesterol or LDL lipoproteins.
Does intermittent fasting help you lose weight?
University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine from New Orleans published an interesting study in the scientific journal New England Journal of Medicine. In it, the researchers wanted to compare the benefits of intermittent fasting over a full year. For this subjected randomized clinical trial with 139 patients obese are divided into two groups. One of the calorie and meal time restricted groups: they could only eat from 8 am to 4 pm, while the other group had only calorie restriction and no time limit. The imposed diet for all participants was 1500-1800 kcal per day for men and 1200-1500 kcal per day for women.
These are the basics of randomized clinical trials: scientific studies of a certain quality that allow you to analyze a variable by isolating it in one group, while the other is left out – this is the so-called control group. Once this method has been established, subjects with very similar conditions (weight, height, or age) are selected and assigned completely randomly to one of two groups. This is how scientific magic is donebeing able to get a study that goes beyond observational studies and provides us with more evidence or reliability in terms of its results.
Generally speaking, intermittent fasting is no better than a low-calorie diet for weight loss. Eye, it’s not worse
And what conclusions does the study draw? Well, in general terms, intermittent fasting is no better than a low-calorie diet for weight loss. Eye, after all, too, not worse. The results show this, as study participants who followed intermittent fasting lost an average of 8 kilograms, while those who followed only a low-calorie diet lost 6.3 kilograms. Despite the difference, statistically significant differences are not taken into account at 12 months. Other parameters such as BMI, body fat, waist circumference or blood pressure also decreased in line with weight loss, but without significant changes.
The study authors themselves are straightforward in their interpretation of the results: “In this 12-month trial, we found that an 8-hour time-limited feeding regimen did not lead to greater weight loss than a daily calorie restriction regimen, and both regimens resulted in the same calorie deficit.”
Limitations of research into this practice
Despite the findings, the truth is that the study has some limitations that we need to consider. It is important to always mention this, because There is no perfect research: It is impossible to control all the parameters and variables that may affect our hypothesis.
Thus, only people belonging to the general population without additional diseases were included in the study. It is impossible to prove from this particular study whether intermittent fasting can benefit people with diabetes or cardiovascular diseasefor example, as suggested in the past.
On the other hand, the researchers also did not take into account physical exercises performed by the participants: This is one of the big variables left out, perhaps the most important. We can’t attribute weight loss solely to diet, but exercise must come into play, a metric that can vary greatly from person to person.
Since always one scientific study does not tell the whole truth about the topic. However, it’s interesting to put all of its strengths as well as its downsides in context to make evidence-based health recommendations. Thus, we can conclude that intermittent fasting is an interesting weight loss tool that has been used by nutritionists for many years. However, it doesn’t seem to be for everyone. Promise to lose weight with her yes or yes? So it’s a complete scam. If someone does, run as far as you can.
Source: Hiper Textual
