A new study has challenged the hype surrounding the greater effectiveness of intermittent fasting for weight loss.
According to a new scientific review published in Cochrane LibraryIntermittent fasting is no better than traditional diets when it comes to weight loss and hardly more effective than doing nothing.
According to the analysis by researchers who reviewed data from 22 global studies, people who tried intermittent fasting, such as the 5:2 diet popularized by the late Michael Mosley, lost about the same amount of weight as those who followed a standard healthy diet.
Compared to doing nothing, intermittent fasting led to only about 3 percent of body weight loss, far below the 5 percent that doctors consider meaningful and providing tangible health benefits.
Dr. Luis Garegnani, the lead author and director of the Cochrane Associate Center at Buenos Aires Italian Hospital in Argentina, said: “Intermittent fasting is not a miracle solution, but it can be one of many options for weight management.”
“Intermittent fasting is likely to produce results similar to traditional nutritional approaches to weight loss. It’s not clearly better, but it’s not worse either,” she added.
Commenting on the study’s findings, Dr Zhila Semnani-Azad of the National University of Singapore said the efficacy of intermittent fasting also depends on timing, because the body’s circadian rhythms are so deeply linked to metabolism.
Limitations of the study
The study also contains some limitations, because it only looked at the results over a period of up to twelve months, so the long-term effects are still unclear. In addition, reporting of side effects was also inconsistent across studies, making it difficult to draw a final conclusion.
In recent years, the popularity of intermittent fasting has skyrocketed as obesity becomes a widespread global problem. According to the WHO, obesity in adults worldwide has more than tripled since 1976.
With this approach, people fast for 16 hours, followed by an 8-hour eating window.
