New discovery: Intermittent fasting may have health benefits

The fasting diet is a special diet that is widely circulated, but whether it really has any benefits is still unknown. A recent paper published in Science Translational Medicine pointed out that if a simulated fasting method that reduces food intake for five consecutive days a month is carried out for three months, there will be significant improvements in body weight, metabolic risk indicators, etc.

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Research Methods

The study enrolled 100 healthy adults in the United States and put them on a fasting-mimicking diet.

The intervention group used a very low-calorie diet five days each month, with the first day's diet being 1,100 calories, containing 11% protein, 46% fat, and 43% carbohydrates. The second to fifth days consist of a 717-calorie diet containing 9% protein, 44% fat and 47% carbohydrates. The five-day diet consisted of nutritional supplements made by L-Nutra. The rest of the time you can eat and drink as you like. The same cycle is repeated in the second and third months. The intervention group and the control group were swapped after three months to observe the changes.

Study Results

In the first three months, the intervention group had a significant weight loss compared with the observation group (-2.6kg vs 0.1kg), and the weight loss effect mainly came from the reduction of total body fat and trunk fat. At the same time, the intervention group reduced waist circumference by 4.1 cm, blood pressure dropped by 4.5/3.1 mmHg, and IGF-1 index dropped by 21.7 ng/mL. However, there was no change in fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, C-reactive protein, etc.

After the two groups were exchanged, the initial observation group also showed similar changes after three months of intervention.

In the experiment, 25% of the subjects were unable to complete the study due to time constraints, personal factors, dislike for the diet, or inability to maintain it.

discuss

This short-term study shows that fasting therapy can improve unhealthy indicators of the body, such as weight, body fat, waist circumference, blood pressure, and IGF-1. However, this study did not intervene in diet and exercise for the observation group. Therefore, it is impossible to distinguish whether the improvements in body fat, blood pressure, etc. observed in the study are from the benefits of weight loss or the benefits of fasting.

At the same time, this study was only conducted for half a year (3 months of intervention and 3 months of observation), and it is impossible to infer the maintenance effect over a longer period of time. Many diets can help you lose weight in a short period of time, but they do not have a significant effect in the long term (more than a year).

Furthermore, there are different ways to conduct fasting therapy. This experiment used very low-calorie nutritional supplements as an alternative to fasting therapy. However, whether such experimental results are applicable to all fasting therapies is controversial.

in conclusion

Short-term fasting therapy is helpful for weight, body fat and related metabolic risk indicators. However, it is not clear whether this effect comes from reduced calorie intake or from the effects of fasting itself. This study did not conduct a longer-term study. It is still unknown whether the average person can maintain fasting therapy for a longer period of time, or whether fasting therapy has better effects.

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