A new study has shown that intermittent fasting, a popular weight management strategy, may prove to be more detrimental in the long run than most initially thought.
Apparently, limiting one’s food intake to just eight hours a day can increase the risk of death from heart disease by a whopping 91%.
The American Heart Association (AHA) published the abstract of the study on 18 March, at its Lifestyle Scientific Sessions meeting in Chicago.
However, the lack of details in the abstract has prompted other scientists to question whether other variables, such as the respondents’ health conditions, have skewed the test results.
According to Bloomberg, Professor Victor Zhong of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine led the study.
Source: VeryWell Health
It comprises data from 20,000 adults from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
About 50% of the patients were men who were 48 years old on average.
The study drew its numbers from the respondents’ answers to questionnaires and death data from 2003 to 2019.
It is currently unclear how long the patients kept up with intermittent fasting. However, the research leader Prof Zhong said in an email to Bloomberg that they assumed the patients continued with it.
The patients who fasted were also more likely to be young men with higher body mass index and food insecurity, as well as a lower prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
“We controlled for all these variables in the analysis, but the positive association between eight-hour time-restricted eating and cardiovascular mortality remained,” he added.
Other scientists in the field have pointed to the room for potential inaccuracies in the study, as it partially relies on forms that asked respondents to recall their food intake over two days, Bloomberg reported.
Source: Rachael Gorjestani on Unsplash
The lack of specificity with variables such as underlying heart health and other conditions in the study also contributes to the scepticism.
“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,” said University of Oxford emeritus professor of human metabolism Keith Frayn in a statement to the UK Science Media Centre.
Interestingly, and contrary to the study, John Hopkins Medicine published an article about the benefits of intermittent fasting. According to the post, the many benefits include “a longer life, a leaner body and a sharper mind”.
It cites one of many studies by neuroscientist Mark Mattson who studied intermittent fasting for 25 years. Mattson reportedly said: “Many things happen during intermittent fasting that can protect organs against chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, age-related neurodegenerative disorders, even inflammatory bowel disease and many cancers.”
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