In this article, we will discuss fasting and the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
There are a lot of things about fasting, petit and otherwise, but the methods that are claimed to help you lose weight, eliminate toxins, etc. are often recommended.
There is simply an opportunity to limit calorie intake, which I can imagine would be helpful for weight loss, but what about the other aspects? It also seems to be a good idea.
Can it prevent cardiovascular disease? The following is a review of some of the studies, including those that employed randomized controlled trials.
The studies
A review of 18 studies that included 1125 participants.
These studies report the results of interventions that ranged from 4 weeks to 6 months.None of the studies included data on mortality from all causes, cardiovascular mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction, or heart failure at any point during follow-up.
Of the data analyzed quantitatively, seven studies compared intermittent fasting with free feeding, eight studies compared intermittent fasting with continuous fasting, and three studies compared intermittent fasting with both free and continuous fasting.Outcomes were reported at 3 months and at 3 to 12 months follow-up.
Weight loss was observed with intermittent fasting compared to short-term free feeding.The comparison of the effects of intermittent fasting compared to short-term continuous fasting is unclear.The effect of intermittent fasting on glucose is unknown when compared to short periods of free eating.Changes in body weight and glucose were not considered clinically significant.Four studies reported data on side effects, with some participants complaining of mild headaches.
Reviewer's conclusion
Intermittent fasting was seen to be superior to free-feeding in terms of weight loss. However, this was not clinically important: there was no significant clinical difference between IF and CER in improving cardiovascular metabolic risk factors to reduce the risk of CVD. Further studies are needed to understand the safety and risk-benefit analysis of IF in specific patient groups (e.g., patients with diabetes or eating disorders) and its impact on long-term outcomes such as death from all causes and myocardial infarction.
Allaf M, Elghazaly H, Mohamed OG, Fareen MF, Zaman S, Salmasi A-M, Tsilidis K, Dehghan A. Intermittent fasting for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2021, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD013496. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD013496.pub2. Accessed 01 February 2021.
Conclusion
The effects of intermittent fasting seemed to be some weight loss and some improvement in blood glucose levels, but not in terms of clinical significance, as mentioned above.There is no significant difference in the measured effects of intermittent or continuous fasting, so either is fine, and there are no reports of serious side effects with intermittent fasting.One of the studies mentioned above was assessed in terms of well-being, and included results of a slight increase in happiness.
From this review, it is unclear whether intermittent fasting has any effect on the goal of preventing cardiovascular disease, so it would be wrong to encourage people to fast by talking about it, but it is worth mentioning that it is unlikely to have any significant effect on weight loss.
However, intermittent fasting is no different from restricting calories, so I would like to see a study comparing intermittent fasting with fasting.It is possible to do it easily, but it would be better to be conscious of not overeating.
