3 ms·

No control group, and n=14. This study says nothing.

marketingPro 6y ago
Generally it's good to be skeptical but this- "We found a significant fold increase in the levels of several tumor suppressor and DNA repair gene protein products (GP)s at the end of 4th week during 4-week intermittent fasting (CALU, INTS6, KIT, CROCC, PIGR), and 1 week after 4-week intermittent fasting (CALU, CALR, IGFBP4, SEMA4B) compared with the levels before 4-week intermittent fasting." But why would this suddenly happen? There's some physiology here to be uncovered. That hardly is 'nothing'. Is it calories? Is it fasting? Is it nutrient timing? You can't find out which from "no control", but there's definitely a physiological effect being seen, correct?
- aaaxyz 6y ago
  Is it climate change? Is it because the stock market went up 10%? Because Saturn's orbit crossed it's periphelion? Or more seriously, could it just be the Hawtorne effect? As you pointed out, without a control group, you cannot claim that any change in your measurements are due to anything. The fact that the researchers do attribute it to fasting is just bad science and makes me doubt the rest of their findings.
  - marketingPro 6y ago
    If any of those happened, wouldn't the entire world see those physiological effects? Being a bit more realistic is the hawthorne effect, which can be easy to test with follow up experiments. My biggest takeaway isn't to do IF or cut calories, but rather it seems some phenomena was found. If you asked me if diet, fasting, etc... Would cute cancer, I'd have said NO! but this study has changed that answer to "I don't know". I suggest that is a huge difference and benefit.
- andi999 6y ago
  Well, could be a different thing altogether. This was probably done in Ramadan (the no-drinking thing, and the researches from Turkey as I saw in a different comment). So there would also be no smoking allowed for 14h per day. Maybe this has an effect.
rattray 6y ago
"Nothing" is a bit strong – it probably says that further study is warranted. It certainly doesn't say that intermittent fasting will cure/prevent cancer.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- aeternum 6y ago
  It could say nothing since we don't know about potential negative trials. How many research groups tried this with a similar N=14 size group but got statistically insignificant results and thus were not able to publish results?
  - eru 6y ago
    > How many research groups tried this with a similar N=14 size group but got statistically insignificant results [..] Thanks to p-hacking, I would expect most small studies to get statistically significant results. Though that doesn't settle the more important question of whether they manage to get published.
- andi999 6y ago
  Since I believe this is religious fasting, the subjects probably didnt smoke during the day. Question is of course how many smokers are there in the group.
andi999 6y ago
A control group which would be allowed to drink water would be nice. Probably they took the blood values of people doeing religious fasting.
didibus 6y ago
I agree, this is very very preliminary. Out of curiosity I also thought I'd check who made the study, the main doctor is from Istanbul Turkey, and the other main author seems to be Muslim as well. Now, that justifies why they were interested in studying this, since it's very similar to Ramadan, but it also could show a bit of a bias in hoping to find positive results. I'd like to see further evidence before I change my IF routine to be from dawn to sunset and also limit drinking intake personally.

Generally it's good to be skeptical but this- "We found a significant fold increase in the levels of several tumor suppressor and DNA repair gene protein products (GP)s at the end of 4th week during 4-week intermittent fasting (CALU, INTS6, KIT, CROCC, PIGR), and 1 week after 4-week intermittent fasting (CALU, CALR, IGFBP4, SEMA4B) compared with the levels before 4-week intermittent fasting." But why would this suddenly happen? There's some physiology here to be uncovered. That hardly is 'nothing'. Is it calories? Is it fasting? Is it nutrient timing? You can't find out which from "no control", but there's definitely a physiological effect being seen, correct?

aaaxyz 6y ago
Is it climate change? Is it because the stock market went up 10%? Because Saturn's orbit crossed it's periphelion? Or more seriously, could it just be the Hawtorne effect? As you pointed out, without a control group, you cannot claim that any change in your measurements are due to anything. The fact that the researchers do attribute it to fasting is just bad science and makes me doubt the rest of their findings.
- marketingPro 6y ago
  If any of those happened, wouldn't the entire world see those physiological effects? Being a bit more realistic is the hawthorne effect, which can be easy to test with follow up experiments. My biggest takeaway isn't to do IF or cut calories, but rather it seems some phenomena was found. If you asked me if diet, fasting, etc... Would cute cancer, I'd have said NO! but this study has changed that answer to "I don't know". I suggest that is a huge difference and benefit.
andi999 6y ago
Well, could be a different thing altogether. This was probably done in Ramadan (the no-drinking thing, and the researches from Turkey as I saw in a different comment). So there would also be no smoking allowed for 14h per day. Maybe this has an effect.

rattray 6y ago

"Nothing" is a bit strong – it probably says that further study is warranted. It certainly doesn't say that intermittent fasting will cure/prevent cancer.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
aeternum 6y ago
It could say nothing since we don't know about potential negative trials. How many research groups tried this with a similar N=14 size group but got statistically insignificant results and thus were not able to publish results?
- eru 6y ago
  > How many research groups tried this with a similar N=14 size group but got statistically insignificant results [..] Thanks to p-hacking, I would expect most small studies to get statistically significant results. Though that doesn't settle the more important question of whether they manage to get published.
andi999 6y ago
Since I believe this is religious fasting, the subjects probably didnt smoke during the day. Question is of course how many smokers are there in the group.

andi999 6y ago

A control group which would be allowed to drink water would be nice. Probably they took the blood values of people doeing religious fasting.

didibus 6y ago

I agree, this is very very preliminary. Out of curiosity I also thought I'd check who made the study, the main doctor is from Istanbul Turkey, and the other main author seems to be Muslim as well. Now, that justifies why they were interested in studying this, since it's very similar to Ramadan, but it also could show a bit of a bias in hoping to find positive results. I'd like to see further evidence before I change my IF routine to be from dawn to sunset and also limit drinking intake personally.