Is intermittent fasting useful for weight loss? And to improve health indicators?
When trying to answer these types of questions by consulting the latest studies and reviews, things can become more complicated than expected. Intermittent fasting can be compared to not dieting or eating as usual (usual diet). Or also regarding specific eating patterns. Or diets with equivalent continuous calorie restriction. In addition, there are various modalities of intermittent fasting and little standardization, the most popular being alternate day fasting (ALT) and restricted schedule (TRF).
In order to try to provide a global vision of the matter and thus complete the various posts that I have been publishing about the results of the studies, I tried to visually represent a synthesis of the existing meta-analyses on intermittent fasting.
This is the result (click to enlarge):
I emphasize «I have tried», because it has not been easy at all. I have had to use a lot of imagination to integrate everything, given the variety of methodologies that the different authors of each review have used. Reviews often mixed different types of intermittent fasting and different control diets, without making the conclusions very clear for each case (in those cases I have leaned towards the more «conservative» result). So it should be considered simply an approximate and indicative graphic guide.
As you can see, it represents with different colors the result for different indicators (weight, BMI, waist circumference, body fat, blood pressure, total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides, glucose, insulin, insulin resistance and glycated hemoglobin) . Each color shows the result when comparing intermittent fasting with the usual diet or with continuous caloric restriction, as indicated in the legend below.
At a quick glance you can see that intermittent fasting obtains quite positive results (green) in the left area of the figure, that of the indicators associated with measured and anthropometric weight. In the right area, that of cardiometabolic indicators, the results are more diverse.
In any case, given the interest aroused by this type of diet, this figure is sure to lose validity quickly. And let’s hope it’s because we reach more uniform and reliable conclusions.
Your article helped me a lot, is there any more related content? Thanks!
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.
Your point of view caught my eye and was very interesting. Thanks. I have a question for you.