Is there conclusive research on fasting?

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vm007
vm007 Posts: 241 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Just wondering, if there is any conclusive research as in something that I can use and live by on how many times to eat or not?

I saw this research which talked about obesity and I clicked on the forum and I saw comment after comment upon how eating "less times" a day is better for health (note that we are not talking about quantity). They are talking about duration, as in eat 2 times a day then fast for rest of the day.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2023/02/23/excess-weight-obesity-more-deadly-previously-believed

Unsure if I am allowed to post reddit links.

What are your thoughts?

Replies

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,514 Member
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    If you're obese and losing weight is the goal, well it's all CICO. IF is one method of CICO since it's assumed/inferred that IF means reduced calories, and that works better for some people than others. Whether you do IF, TRE, Med diet, whatever you want, it's all CICO at the end of the day.

    Other considerations include some people don't want to work out fasted, and some prefer protein spacing through the day.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 1,620 Member
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    Meal frequency and timing are strictly personal preferences.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    From what I can tell, usually the benefits of these particular studies only apply to small segments of the population - elite athletic performance, for instance. For regular people, the difference is typically negligible. Most of us are regular people.

    You might personally find that eating one or two meals per day instead of three (or even more) helps you lose weight. Preferring to eat three times per day doesn't mean you will never lose weight (which seems to be the unspoken assumption when these sorts of studies circulate - which is one reason I get annoyed by them.)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,150 Member
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    Conclusive? No.

    There's conclusive research on very few things. Weight of evidence and consensus of educated experts is more how science is shaped - generically - it seems to me.

    Research on long-term effects of dietary patterns is mostly flawed structurally: It's not affordable, ethical or practical to lock people in a metabolic chamber for years and strictly control their intake. Self-reported long term eating data is biased, and at best only produces correlational outcome data, not conclusive proof.

    On top of that, fasting research is still young.

    Pretty good short term evidence exists that total calorie intake controls body weight, and that individuals differ somewhat in their calorie needs (smallish standard deviation in BMR/RMR, huge variation in activity levels).

    For weight loss, compliance - a routine a person can stick to long enough to lose a meaningful total amount of weight - has more practical importance IMO than the inherent universal benefits of any given method per se. IMO, compliance is even a bigger deal for maintenance.

    What's sustainable in that sense seems pretty individual based on what I've read on MFP over the nearly 8 years I've been here (loss, then long term maintenance, BTW, if that matters as bona fides).
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 9,918 Member
    edited February 2023
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    The link you provided is based on observational studies that will only show associations. If the focus is weight loss then it's just about calories and fasting has nothing to do with how many calories a person eats or how many meals you consume in a day, although that has somehow become a talking point for some reason.

    What your referring to is TRF or time restricted eating/feeding over 24 hrs which is about the desynchrony of the mechanisms of action that are associated with our circadian rhythm and how that may effect our metabolic health. Maybe do research in that context for further explanation. Cheers.
  • vm007
    vm007 Posts: 241 Member
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    Thank you everyone for posting.

    I just went down the rabbit hole of reading reddit comments and they started talking about how eating 3 times a day isn't beneficial and people who eat multiple times during the day is harmful. One thing led to another and talks about "fasting" words like autophagy or something were being used and I started wondering if there was some weight to their conversation.

  • roseym10
    roseym10 Posts: 104 Member
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    I just read something similar about eating more times a day, specifically snacks causes your liver, pancreas and your hormones to work overtime affecting the production of leptin leading to causing false hunger. I've always thought snacking keeps you from overeating. I am truly getting fed up with all the contradictory information out there, I never know what is correct. I think it's down to what works for each individual

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