Jeremiah Farias

Intermittent Fasting: Does It Offer Health Benefits?

Written by Jeremiah Farias on July 17, 2020

Today we are looking at the topic of Intermittent Fasting. This term has become well known but is misused. Technically, Intermittent Fasting is an umbrella term that encompasses Alternate-day fasting, a 5:2 diet, and Time-Restricted Eating. 

Alternate-day fasting consists of days of regular eating, followed by days of eating little to no food. For example, if you eat dinner on Monday night (7:00 pm) you would not eat anything until Wednesday morning, which comes out to around 36-hours of fasting. 36-hours of not eating can be very challenging for people, especially every-other-day, so the 5:2 diet can be a better option. The 5:2 diet consists of 5 days of regular eating and two entire days of fasting.

Do those eating patterns come to mind when you think of Intermittent Fasting? Probably not. What you most likely associate with Intermittent Fasting is Time-Restricted Eating, where one starts eating around noon and stops eating at 8:00 pm, so they have an 8-hour eating window and a 16-hour fasting window. 

So, we will be looking at a study out of the Annual Review of Nutrition that looks at Time-Restricted Eating. The study is titled, “Time-Restricted Eating to Prevent and Manage Chronic Metabolic Diseases.” Researchers, Chaix et al., looked into both animal and human research on the ways Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) can benefits our health. 

One benefit of TRE is it allows for a healthy circadian rhythm. As you may have heard, we have an internal 24-hour clock; a central clock in our brain, and peripheral clocks throughout our body. The central clock, found within the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) of our brain, is impacted by light-dark cycles. Alternatively, the peripheral clocks are highly responsive to food intake. 

One of the direct benefits of TRE is the possible reduction of calories. If you take someone who typically eats from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep, and then have them eat all their food in an 8-hour window, there is a good chance they will reduce their calories, which leads to weight loss and better health. 

However, outside of caloric restriction (CR), Chaix et al. reported additional benefits associated with TRE. TRE was found to positively affect the brain, musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system, liver, digestive system, and adipose tissue (body fat). 

As you can see there are benefits to eating all your calories within a 6 to 10-hour eating window. Outside of possibly consuming fewer calories, time-restricted eating offers additional health effects due to circadian rhythm optimization. 

Have you been thinking about tinkering with Intermittent Fasting/Time-Restricted Feeding? If you are accustomed to eating all your food over a 12-hour or longer window, it may be beneficial to incrementally reduce your eating window until you reach your ideal time frame. 

I hope you found this information interesting. If you have questions or suggestions for topics you would like me to cover please do not hesitate to reach out!

That’s all for now!

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Sources:

Chaix, A., Manoogian, E., Melkani, G. C., & Panda, S. (2019). Time-Restricted Eating to Prevent and Manage Chronic Metabolic Diseases. Annual review of nutrition39, 291–315. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-nutr-082018-124320

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