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> Subjects had a significant reduction in body mass index, waist circumference, and improvement in blood pressure Would really like to see this compared to ano
by mikenew 6y ago
> Subjects had a significant reduction in body mass index, waist circumference, and improvement in blood pressure
Would really like to see this compared to another group with a similar level of calorie restriction but without the intermittent fasting. The question with intermittent fasting is really just "is it better than plain old calorie restriction". Seems like there's some evidence that points to "yes" and some evidence that points to "not really".
EDIT: To be clear, by "is it better" I meant aside from just adherence. I've used IF quite a bit myself and I find it much easier than eating frequent, small meals throughout the day if I want to be hypocaloric. There are a lot of claims around autophagy, a more favorable metabolic adaptation, better body composition, and in this case actual cancer treatment. That is what I would like to see evidence for.
- ravenstine 6y agoMy suspicion is that you would see similar improvement with things like waist circumference, BMI, blood pressure, at least initially, but that the difference with intermittent fasting is that it introduces enough of a "fasted state" that the body is able to perform repair and autophagy of senescent cells that would occur much less in a constantly fed state. (something about telomerase, but I probably shouldn't mention that because my memory about that is foggy) If you increased the amount of fasting, I'd bet good money that people would lose more weight than on a calorie-equivalent diet. Intermittent fasting, in my experience, is helpful in sticking to a diet that is lower in calories because it allows you to eat satisfying meals.
- voisin 6y agoFrom what I understand, autophagy doesn’t start until 18 hours and doesn’t peak until 72 hours.
- JohnGB 6y agoAutophagy is always active, the real question is how that activity changes during fasting. The number of 18 hours is fairly arbitrary, as even after a few hours of fasting autophagy increases.
- rmoriz 6y agoAutophagy is not a binary thing. Every body does autophagy all the time, it's the intensity/volume that increases in longer fasts.
- ravenstine 6y agoI've never heard of that 18 hour rule. It's funny because I've read a lot about fasting, but this is news to me, and it seems like this is reported from multiple sources. But I can't seem to find any authoritative references.
- shock 6y agoThe Japanese researcher that got a Nobel Prize for discovering the autophagy mechanisms has a course on edx. Doesn't get much more authoritative than that.
- mrfusion 6y agoI’ve been looking for a good source but haven’t found one. Has it not been studied in humans yet?
- voisin 6y agoI think I heard it on the FoundMyFitness podcast which has excellent discussions about fasting science. I think it may have been the last interview with Valter Longo. I’ll see if I can dig it up, but their website would be a good starting point.
- markdown 6y ago"Someone said so in an interview" isn't really compelling evidence. Do you know of actual evidence of this? Studies?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hombre_fatal 6y agoFeel free to pore over thousands of scientific papers about the benefits of fasting on NCBI for us and let us know. Until then, I'll take NutritionFacts.org videos' word for it: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCddn8dUxYdgJz3Qr5mjADtA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCddn8dUxYdgJz3Qr5mjADtA which cites scientific papers as it makes claims.
- _-___________-_ 6y agoNo idea why you're being downvoted. Even when videos/podcasts cite studies, it's difficult to verify that the study actually supports their claim since it's often difficult to find the study they mention. The 18 hour claim may be supported by evidence, but there isn't any in this subthread so far.
- ConcernedCoder 6y agohttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=kaup20 https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=a...
- tracker1 6y agoDepends on what you're eating... if you're on a keto (fast mimicking) macro level intake, you'll reach autophagy a bit faster. Heavy exercise/resistance/lifting can also help speed this up, which can also lend to timing of exercise and food intake.
- theNJR 6y agoWe’re working on this. Harder than it seems.
- rattray 6y agoBy "we", you mean https://zerofasting.com/ https://zerofasting.com/ ? Seems like a nice app!
- theNJR 6y agoThat is us!
- AnonC 6y agoI tried that app a very long time ago, and then in an update they forced users to create an online account with no local use option. I promptly removed it since I’m averse to creating online accounts when I see no good reason to do it.
- mrapogee 6y agoTrue. However, even if intermittent fasting is no more effective than calorie restriction, from a human behavior perspective, it seems to be an easier way for many people to achieve their calorie goals than just "eating less".
- azemetre 6y agoYeah, this is why I prefer one mead a day (OMAD). It's a very large meal, 1600-2000 calories over a 2 hour period but I find it much easier to control my calorie intake this way. The only thing I regret since the pandemic is drinking coffee. I try to limit the amount of sugar and almond milk I add, but I feel like it's impacting my diet some how.
- throwaway9980 6y agoI know you meant one meal a day, but I read this as one mead a day and it was so really fun confusion. EDIT: parent edited for the typo, but it originally read one mead a day... one very large mead. But where do you get your protein? Is there protein mead? How does this all mead diet work.
- Cro_on 6y agoSounds like how I used to 'fast' on weekends
- jfim 6y agoWith regards to coffee, you can try cold brewing coffee, it's much smoother (less bitter and less acidic), which might allow you to drink it without sugar and milk. There are commercially available cold brew coffees that have no added sugar and milk as well, in case you want to try the taste before making it at home.
- jsdalton 6y agoAs someone who absolutely needed sugar in coffee before I considered it drinkable, I can tell you that you can wean yourself off it. It took me several months before I stopped noticing its absence but nowadays I don’t miss it. I still use milk though!
- ronyeh 6y agoI think intermittent fasting is easier to implement for the average person. It's much easier to tell someone that they can eat as much as they want, but only between 6-8pm (one meal a day). It's difficult to tell someone you can eat 3 meals but no more than 1500 calories in total. Once I start eating, I don't want to stop (until I'm full). But the point at which I'm full is way beyond my calorie limit if I am eating 3 meals a day.
- erklik 6y ago> until I'm full and I've learnt that it's very hard to know when you're satisfied in terms of hunger, and full in terms of desire. The level of food required to satiate my hunger seems to be quite different from when I am "full".
- mrslave 6y agoDoing a 1-2 meal, 800 calorie/day diet for 8 weeks helped me to figure this out. The hard adjustment period was only for the first week. I then realized small and fewer meals was sufficient. Not that the remainder was easy, but it was a different kind of struggle - and noticeably easier than the first week.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago800 is far too low for that amount of time unless you weight like 80lbs. 1200 calories at least to stop your body from using muscle for sustenance.
- patrickk 6y ago> 1200 calories at least to stop your body from using muscle for sustenance. This is only true up to a point. A colleague put me onto a fasting method called “Buchinger’s Fasting”. I fasted for around a week and a half, muscle maintenance was not a concern. After 3 days, your body burns through the glucose reserves and you get brain fog. After that, indeed, your body tried to break down muscle mass for fuel. The trick is to do some moderate exercise to keep your muscles in good condition. After a few days, your body finally turns to your fat reserves, and rapidly starts burning away fat. After the first 3 or so days, you actually become numb to the hunger and go into a slightly “high”, hunter gatherer alert mode that enabled our ancestors to search for food when hungry. It really brings home that being hungry and not being fed constantly is a normal part of human existence, and the industrial era, shoving food down our gullets constantly is making us sick and prevents natural healing within our bodies.
- fredophile 6y agoI don't have any studies handy but here's what I remember from looking into this. IF does not lead to more weight loss than other diets when you match calories. At least some forms of IF also have lower adherence than simple caloric restriction. My own anecdata suggests that I have better adherence to IF than regular caloric restriction. YMMV. The diet that helps you lose the most weight will be the one you follow closest.
- tracker1 6y agoCan only speak anecdotally.. but I find it relatively easy to stick to one or two meals a day over trying to do smaller/frequent meals. Same goes for avoiding carbs (keto macros). When I eat more frequently or start adding starchy foods, I'm ravenous the next couple days.
- irjustin 6y agoFrom a pure scientific underlying root method - I agree with you. The problem I see is if this question is the only one, the immediate second question becomes - does Intermittent Fasting produce the same results? requiring an additional study. From a practical implementation, this research is better suited to everyday life. Intermittent Fasting as a system is way easier to implement at scale than calorie counting.
- rsync 6y ago"Would really like to see this compared to another group with a similar level of calorie restriction but without the intermittent fasting." I think the answer to your question is total time inflamed (for lack of a better term). Eating and digesting appear to be an interrupt for many other processes, for obvious reasons. You divert a lot of resources and produce a lot of inflammation and depress a lot of immunity. Do you want to be in that state for 14 hours per day or for 6 hours per day ? My bro-science intuition tells me that, all else being equal, consuming the same number of calories in a tighter window is much less expensive.
- airstrike 6y agoWhereas my bro-science intuition tells me that asking my pancreas to produce all the insulin I need in a tighter window is much more taxing
- rsync 6y agoI don't know. You're talking about the engagement of the pancreas itself and I am talking about the effects of that engagement on the entire body. I note with interest that we make reference to insulin "spikes". Do I want to insulin spike more, or fewer, times per day ?
- manicorganic 6y agoIdeally you want no spikes, because you are eating a balanced diet and avoiding meals and snacks consisting largely of refined carbs and refined sugars. A proper meal shouldn't really create a blood sugar (and resulting insulin) spike as much as a gradual elevation and fall back to baseline, because protein, fat, and fiber all slow digestion, and complex carbs (and even sugars within fiber/nutrient matrixes ie whole fruits) don't tend to spike blood sugar too badly in the first place.
- manicorganic 6y agoA single, giant meal is not going to be associated with the problematic blood sugar spikes and rapid insulin responses as long as it is a balanced meal that includes a good amount of fats, proteins and vegetables. All of these slow digestion, so the pancreas will be doling out insulin at a relatively steady, slow rate over the course of hours and then getting a nice long rest. Eating 3 balanced meals throughout the day might be marginally better or worse for the pancreas, but neither of these dietary choices trigger the panic-level insulin responses (which ultimately lead to insulin resistance and diabetes) that snacking on large amounts of refined carbs and refined sugars are notorious for. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121099/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2121099/ This study found that although there was higher blood glucose and reduced glucose tolerance in the morning for the group eating 1 meal a day, surprisingly they had less insulin resistance than the group eating 3. Other indicators of dietary/hormonal health were the same between groups. Same caloric intake of glucose between groups, and the 1 meal a day group shared the same evening window just like OMAD. This was a pilot study with small sample size (irritatingly the actual number isn't listed from what I can see) as well as a high withdrawal rate, unsurprisingly.
- meowzero 6y agoI think there was a study done with similar levels of calories restriction and the results were the exact same.
- joemazerino 6y agoIt would be better in that the body activates ketosis after 12 straight hours. Interrupting that cycle with calories will switch the body back to fed mode.
- mgh2 6y agoNot sure if 14 subjects is enough sample size