Fasting and Metabolic Disease
Mar 27, 2023
Diabetes, heart disease, and obesity are all metabolic disorders. Metabolic disease has become an epidemic world-wide in the past 50 years and continues to impact more and more people of all walks of life. A reduction of calories is consistently recommended as the cornerstone of treatment. More recently, intermittent fasting has gained popularity as an alternative approach.
There are many different models of intermittent fasting that accomplish reduction of calories by limiting the timing of meals and snacks. These include time-restricted feeding, alternate day fasting, alternate day modified fasting and the 5:2 diet.
Time-restricted feeding typically limits the window of meals and snacks to 8 hours. E.g. eating between the hours of 10AM and 6PM.
Alternate-day fasting is no food on the fasting day and eating as desired on the following day.
Alternate-day modified fasting allows for one meal on the fasting day.
5:2 diet is 5 days of eating as desired with 2 days of fasting.
When compared to daily caloric restriction, these diets perform equally well for weight loss and for optimizing most metabolic health markers. However, fasting models consistently outperform caloric restriction for reducing insulin resistance and diabetes. For this reason, intermittent fasting offers more promise for reversing metabolic disease while weight loss goals are being met.
When considering the use of fasting in any form, it is important to consider social and cultural norms, personal preferences and work requirements. There can be both challenges and advantages to incorporating fasting into your rhythms. For most families, dinner is an important meal for connecting and sharing so this meal may limit options. On the other hand, fasting while traveling can be a huge benefit when healthy food choices are limited. With some adjustments, most people can incorporate some form of fasting into their lifestyle to promote lifelong health.
Sources
Hoddy, K.K., Marlatt, K.L., Çetinkaya, H. and Ravussin, E. (2020), Intermittent Fasting and Metabolic Health: From Religious Fast to Time‐Restricted Feeding. Obesity, 28: S29-S37. doi:10.1002/oby.22829
Gabel, Kelsey et al. ‘Effects of 8-hour Time Restricted Feeding on Body Weight and Metabolic Disease Risk Factors in Obese Adults: A Pilot Study’. 1 Jan. 2018 : 345 – 353.
Rynders CA, Thomas EA, Zaman A, Pan Z, Catenacci VA, Melanson EL. Effectiveness of Intermittent Fasting and Time-Restricted Feeding Compared to Continuous Energy Restriction for Weight Loss. Nutrients. 2019;11(10):2442. Published 2019 Oct 14. doi:10.3390/nu11102442
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