Research Highlights: A study of over 20,000 adults found that those who followed an 8-hour time-restricted eating schedule, a type of intermittent fasting, had a 91% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease. People with heart disease or cancer ...
As a big fan of IF, I find this really depressing.
I do 16:8 IF. It’s the best and easiest way I’ve lost weight AND maintained it. I can’t imagine how eating less (and not starving yourself) and carrying less weight around can be worse for your health than eating throughout the course of the day.
The study’s limitations included its reliance on self-reported dietary information, which may be affected by participant’s memory or recall and may not accurately assess typical eating patterns. Factors that may also play a role in health, outside of daily duration of eating and cause of death, were not included in the analysis.
This definitely needs better methods of study, and peer reviews of course. Not sure if the study covered what participants were actually eating, because I would guess that would be the main factor.
The article itself quotes another doctor saying:
“However, the long-term health effects of time-restricted eating, including risk of death from any cause or cardiovascular disease, are unknown.”
I hope this study is proven wrong as IF has been the one “diet” plan I was actually able to do and keep doing.
You’re right to point out this is an observational, retrospective study showing only a correlation. So there are a lot of caveats there. I think this raises some potential concerns though that should be looked into further. Ideally in a prospective and more controlled way to better isolate the effects of intermittent fasting.
There’s been many times in medical history where something that seems to make sense doesn’t pan out in the end or even causes harm. Studies like this are just step one, even the authors state they were expecting to show benefits and that this result was a complete surprise to them. We definitely need to be looking into this further to better quantify potential risks and benefits of intermittent fasting, especially with its popularity. It would be a shame if intermittent fasting did turn out to carry this risk though, there’s many people like you who have had success with it. It may be in the end that there are some populations it’s appropriate for and others it’s not. Needs more study for sure.
I agree more and better data is good. If this is repeated or a similar study is done and the same results are in, then I would start to evaluate.
Lots of studies also show that moderate induced stress (fasting, cold plunges, saunas) do indeed cause helpful changes, but studying humans is so complicated that we could still be wrong.
There’s no point repeating it. This kind of study is hopeless for answering this sort of question. People go on this kind of diet because they’re concerned about their health, often their weight and general cardiovascular health. It’s not surprising that they’re more likely to die of things related to their reason for going on the diet in the first place.
It’s not quite as starkly obvious as “people who choose to jump out of planes are more likely to die in a parachute accident” but it’s close.
IF is used for a lot of different things. I also do the 16/8 which basically means i eat from 12 to 20. I do it with 3 meals and it works great for me. It also helps that where i live people eat lunch really early so i just skip breakfast and my schedule kinda lines up with the normal one here.
It took a bit of time (few weeks) to start losing, but I never gained more weight since starting; so not in my experience. I did notice at the beginning that I was compensating by eating a lot during the 8-hour window, because I was afraid of going hungry. After around a month, I got used to it and just started eating normally. I just make sure I eat my last meal exactly right before I’m supposed to stop, so I don’t go hungry. If I eat too late (i.e. night out with friends, etc.), I just adjust and eat later the next morning. Stopping the late snacking is definitely one of the reasons I think I lost weight.
I may give it another kick my challenge is I take my pills in the morning and need food and I’m not gonna stop eating at 4pm. Gotta figure out how to shift things around. So far just cutting out the crap has helped immensely
Oh yeah definitely a challenge if you need take meds in the morning. I do 10am-6pm and sometimes start as late as 12 noon if I ate too late the night before. Can you delay your meds to at least 9:30 maybe? But yeah, I think just cutting out the snacks is already a good thing, and if it works for you, I don’t think you need to strictly follow the 8-hour window if it means affecting your meds.
I do 16:8 IF. It’s the best and easiest way I’ve lost weight AND maintained it. I can’t imagine how eating less (and not starving yourself) and carrying less weight around can be worse for your health than eating throughout the course of the day.
This definitely needs better methods of study, and peer reviews of course. Not sure if the study covered what participants were actually eating, because I would guess that would be the main factor.
The article itself quotes another doctor saying:
I hope this study is proven wrong as IF has been the one “diet” plan I was actually able to do and keep doing.
You’re right to point out this is an observational, retrospective study showing only a correlation. So there are a lot of caveats there. I think this raises some potential concerns though that should be looked into further. Ideally in a prospective and more controlled way to better isolate the effects of intermittent fasting.
There’s been many times in medical history where something that seems to make sense doesn’t pan out in the end or even causes harm. Studies like this are just step one, even the authors state they were expecting to show benefits and that this result was a complete surprise to them. We definitely need to be looking into this further to better quantify potential risks and benefits of intermittent fasting, especially with its popularity. It would be a shame if intermittent fasting did turn out to carry this risk though, there’s many people like you who have had success with it. It may be in the end that there are some populations it’s appropriate for and others it’s not. Needs more study for sure.
I agree more and better data is good. If this is repeated or a similar study is done and the same results are in, then I would start to evaluate.
Lots of studies also show that moderate induced stress (fasting, cold plunges, saunas) do indeed cause helpful changes, but studying humans is so complicated that we could still be wrong.
There’s no point repeating it. This kind of study is hopeless for answering this sort of question. People go on this kind of diet because they’re concerned about their health, often their weight and general cardiovascular health. It’s not surprising that they’re more likely to die of things related to their reason for going on the diet in the first place.
It’s not quite as starkly obvious as “people who choose to jump out of planes are more likely to die in a parachute accident” but it’s close.
IF is used for a lot of different things. I also do the 16/8 which basically means i eat from 12 to 20. I do it with 3 meals and it works great for me. It also helps that where i live people eat lunch really early so i just skip breakfast and my schedule kinda lines up with the normal one here.
Quick question. Was doing a 14/10 and found my weight was increasing is that normal in your experience?
I decided to just do normal without the restrictions but kept the no snacking.
It took a bit of time (few weeks) to start losing, but I never gained more weight since starting; so not in my experience. I did notice at the beginning that I was compensating by eating a lot during the 8-hour window, because I was afraid of going hungry. After around a month, I got used to it and just started eating normally. I just make sure I eat my last meal exactly right before I’m supposed to stop, so I don’t go hungry. If I eat too late (i.e. night out with friends, etc.), I just adjust and eat later the next morning. Stopping the late snacking is definitely one of the reasons I think I lost weight.
I may give it another kick my challenge is I take my pills in the morning and need food and I’m not gonna stop eating at 4pm. Gotta figure out how to shift things around. So far just cutting out the crap has helped immensely
Oh yeah definitely a challenge if you need take meds in the morning. I do 10am-6pm and sometimes start as late as 12 noon if I ate too late the night before. Can you delay your meds to at least 9:30 maybe? But yeah, I think just cutting out the snacks is already a good thing, and if it works for you, I don’t think you need to strictly follow the 8-hour window if it means affecting your meds.