Intermittent Fasting’s Darkest Secret
Summary
TLDRIntermittent fasting has gained popularity for weight loss and health, but research reveals it works mainly through calorie restriction, not additional benefits. While animal studies show promise, human studies find similar results to other calorie-restricted diets. There are two fixable issues with intermittent fasting - getting adequate protein intake, and proper meal timing. Overall it can help some people lose weight, but does not provide special benefits over other diets. More research on prolonged fasts is still needed regarding muscle loss.
Takeaways
- 😀 Intermittent fasting can help with weight loss and diabetes treatment, but the benefits come from calorie restriction, not something unique about fasting itself.
- 😞 For healthy people who don't need to lose weight, there are no clear additional benefits from intermittent fasting.
- 👊 For weight loss and diabetes treatment, intermittent fasting works due to calorie reduction.
- 🍴 Protein intake and meal timing are key issues with intermittent fasting that need to be addressed.
- ⌛️ Humans don't fast long enough to activate autophagy like mice do in short-term fasts.
- ⏰ Early time-restricted feeding (eating breakfast, fasting at night) may be optimal intermittent fasting pattern.
- 🥣 Eating breakfast is important; the biggest meal should be earlier in the day, not at night.
- 💪 Prioritize protein intake (1.6 g per kg lean body weight) when fasting to protect muscle.
- 🤝 Prolonged fasting has risks - more research needed to confirm potential benefits outweigh them.
- 😊 For some people, intermittent fasting is an effective weight loss tool, so long as protein and meals are addressed.
Q & A
What is the dark secret about intermittent fasting?
-The dark secret is that in humans, intermittent fasting works through calorie restriction alone. There is no evidence that something magical is happening beyond calorie restriction.
Why did intermittent fasting become popular initially?
-It became popular due to studies in rodents showing benefits like weight loss, improved blood sugar control, and lowered insulin levels even when the intermittent fasting group ate the same calories as the control group.
What are the two main problems with intermittent fasting?
-The two main problems are: 1) Not getting enough protein intake leading to muscle loss 2) Having a large meal late at night which can worsen blood sugar control.
How can the protein intake problem be solved?
-The protein intake problem can be solved by prioritizing protein in the diet and adding a protein shake if needed to reach the target intake of 1.6g per kg of body weight.
What should the meal timing be for intermittent fasting?
-Most calories should be consumed earlier in the day. A good rule of thumb is to eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper to avoid large nighttime meals.
Why don't humans see the same fasting benefits as rodents?
-A 16 hour fast for a mouse is equivalent to a 4-5 day fast for a human. So intermittent fasting of 16-24 hours is unlikely to meaningfully activate autophagy in humans like it does in mice.
Is intermittent fasting more effective for weight loss compared to other diets?
-No, research shows intermittent fasting is not more effective for weight loss compared to other calorie restriction diets when calories are matched.
Does intermittent fasting lower hunger?
-For most people, no. Some individuals may experience lower hunger but generally fasting does not lower overall hunger levels based on clinical studies.
Are there benefits to prolonged fasting?
-There are concerns about muscle loss with prolonged fasts. More research is needed to determine if any potential benefits outweigh these known risks in humans.
Who may benefit from intermittent fasting?
-It can be an effective strategy for some people to lose weight and treat conditions like diabetes. But otherwise healthy people are unlikely to see additional benefits beyond calorie restriction.
Outlines
🤔 The dark secret about how intermittent fasting works in humans
This paragraph explains that while intermittent fasting provided various health benefits in rodent studies, human clinical research shows that most of the benefits come from overall calorie restriction rather than effects unique to intermittent fasting. It states that intermittent fasting helps with weight loss and diabetes by reducing calorie intake but does not provide additional metabolic advantages.
⏰ Why intermittent fasting differs in mice and humans
This paragraph provides reasons why intermittent fasting works differently in mice versus humans. It states that a 16 hour fast for a mouse is equivalent to a 4-5 day fast for a human. So the timeframes typically used for intermittent fasting in humans are unlikely to significantly activate autophagy or provide the same effects seen in rodent studies.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡intermittent fasting
💡time-restricted feeding
💡calorie restriction
💡autophagy
💡protein intake
💡meal timing
💡adherence
💡prolonged fasting
💡weight loss
💡diabetes
Highlights
Intermittent fasting comes in many forms but the popular ones are time-restricted feeding and alternate day fasting.
Time-restricted feeding in rodents reduced body weight and improved blood sugar control even when food intake was matched.
Human research shows time-restricted feeding promotes weight loss likely because fewer calories are consumed.
Intermittent fasting is not more effective for weight loss or reducing blood sugar compared to other calorie restriction diets.
Modern intermittent fasting protocols seem to be largely a rebranding of classic calorie restriction methods.
Mice studies don't translate to humans because a 16 hour mouse fast is equivalent to a 4-5 day human fast.
Higher protein intakes associate with lower mortality, but intermittent fasting makes it hard to reach protein targets.
Total protein intake matters more than meal frequency for muscle mass maintenance.
Most benefits of intermittent fasting come from calorie restriction. There's no evidence of unique metabolic effects.
Have an early, light dinner and brush teeth to signal the end of eating for powerful health benefits.
Prioritize protein intake when intermittent fasting to avoid muscle loss.
Take most calories earlier in the day - breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.
Consider supplements for micronutrient intake but remember they may not be right for everyone.
Check the linked video for more details on the recent landmark protein intake study.
Thank patrons supporting the channel for making videos like this possible.
Transcripts
there's a dark secret about intimate and
fasting that you need to know about
because if you get this wrong you can
significantly worsen your health and
increase your chance of developing
diabetes this is a nuanced topic so I
highly recommend that you watch this
video Until the End where I pull
everything together and summarize the
latest intermittent fasting guidelines
intermittent fasting comes in many
different forms but the popular ones are
time-restricted feeding where you only
eat within a certain window in the day
typically you eat within 8 hours and
fast for the other 16 other popular
forms are alternate day fasting and one
meal a day and the excitement for
intermittent fasting came from studies
in rodents which reported that
time-restricted feeding reduced body
weight improved blood sugar control and
lowered insulin levels and critically
this happened even when food intake was
matched to the control group so both
groups of mice ate the same amount of
calories but the time-restricted feeding
group seemed to get all of these
additional benefits which led to an
explosion in popularity for intermittent
fasting where even if you didn't need to
lose weight some longevity scientists
were advocating for intimate and fasting
as a strategy to extend lifespan and the
presumed mechanism for these possible
benefits was a process called autophagy
or the cell clearance process so as we
age we collect old damaged components
within our cells and autophagy is the
process where we clear those old
components away so that we can rebuild
new ones and autophagy is strongly
activated by starvation but we are not
mice what does the human clinical re
search show and that's where the dark
secret about intimat and fasting is
uncovered starting with a 2020
metaanalysis that pulled all of the
relevant clinical trials together it
concludes that time-restricted feeding
achieved Superior effects in promoting
weight loss and reducing blood sugar
levels compared to approaches with
unrestricted time meal consumption that
all sounds wonderful but then you dig a
bit deeper and bear with me because it's
quite the rabbit hole the
time-restricted feeding groups ate less
calories compared to the control group
so when you analyze Iz the research it
appears that time-restricted feeding is
effective for weight loss probably
because fewer calories are consumed and
that makes sense if you've made a
conscious decision not to eat during
certain parts of the day generally
you're going to consume less calories
overall which begs the question what
benefits does intimat and fasting
provide Beyond calorie restriction well
according to a Cochran review published
in 2021 it appears that intimate and
fasting is not more effective for weight
loss compared to other energy
restriction diets the analysis also
found that intermittent fasting is not
more effective to reduce blood sugar
levels when compared to other
restriction diets take for example this
2019 randomized control trial that tried
to make sure that both groups were
eating the same amounts of calories but
one group was practicing alternate day
fasting the study concluded that
alternate day fasting May provide
greater reductions in fasting insulin
versus calorie restriction which again
sounds great but then you have a closer
look during the study both the alternate
day fasting groups groups and the
calorie restriction groups reduced their
net calorie intake by 25% per day the
calorie restriction group ate
1,761 calories per day whereas the
alternate day fasting groups on the day
that they were fasting they ate
1,175 calories and on their feast day
they ate
1,763 so overall the alternate day
fasting group still ate less calories
compared to the calorie restriction
group so if one group is eating less
calories compared to the other
that is why they see benefits what about
potential benefits for Hunger levels
some people who practice intimate and
fasting say that their overall hunger
levels decrease and if that's you great
but in the clinical studies generally
most people struggle to stick with
fasting the adherence is suboptimal
there's always going to be exceptions to
the rule but generally speaking fasting
does not overall lower your hunger
levels what about benefits for fatty
liver well in a massive 2023 randomized
control trial time restricted feeding
did not produce any additional benefits
for reducing body fat or liver fat
compared to daily calorie restriction
and other meta analyses that pull all of
the relevant clinical studies together
keep coming to the same conclusion
intimate and fasting is not associated
with greater or lesser weight loss than
non-intermittent fasting diets and taken
from Professor Matt caline's review it
appears that modern intermittent fasting
Protocols are largely a rebranding of
classic calorie restriction methods
here's the dark secret about
intermittent fasting people who use
intermittent fasting to help lose weight
and treat their diabetes they're getting
those benefits simply from calorie
restriction alone from the human
research that we've got there's nothing
magical about intimat and fasting so for
otherwise healthy people who don't need
to lose weight or treat their diabetes
there doesn't appear to be any benefits
from practicing intimat and fasting but
there are two Sinister issues with
intermittent fasting that I'll cover
shortly and both can be solved but first
why do humans not get additional
benefits from intermittent fasting like
mice do Beyond calorie restriction well
it's important to remember that a mouse
hour is not the same as a human hour so
broadly speaking if a mouse fasts for 16
hours that's roughly the equivalent of a
human fasting for about 4 to 5 days and
the human liver has energy reserves that
last about 48 hours so it's highly
unlikely that autophagy is going to be
meaningfully activated if you're fasting
for between 16 to 24 hours longer fast
may have different effects but then you
need to worry about losing muscle mass
and that brings me onto the first of two
issues with intermittent fasting and
that is protein intake and muscle mass a
2020 study published in the British
medical journal found that higher
protein intakes are associated with
lower all cause death rates and ideally
we want to be reaching 1.6 g of protein
intake per kilogram of lean body weight
per day but if you're fasting it can be
incredibly difficult to reach those
protein targets which which is why
intermittent fasting can represent a
suboptimal dietary approach to remodel
sceletal muscle now the protein research
recently had a massive update which I
covered in a video here it used to be
thought that protein intakes should
ideally be evenly distributed throughout
the day where you have a protein meal
every 3 to 4 hours but a landmark study
published this year 2024 found that
eating a single large amount of protein
is likely just as effective as splitting
that protein intake through multiple
meals
this may explain why time-restricted
feeding patterns do not seem to
compromise muscle mass maintenance
instead when it comes to protein intake
and muscle mass it's the total protein
intake through the day that seems to
really matter rather than the frequency
of the protein meals so if you're using
intimate and fasting to restrict
calories to lose weight and treat
diabetes make sure that you're
prioritizing your protein intake and if
you're struggling to reach your protein
targets you can consider adding a
protein shake this is a fixable problem
with short intermittent fasting
prolonged fasts though that's a
different story there's a significant
concern that we lose muscle mass with
prolonged fasts and we don't have the
long-term human research to know whether
any potential benefits from these
prolonged fasts outweigh the known risks
the second fixable problem is meal
timing most people who practice
time-restricted feeding skip breakfast
and have a large meal at the end of the
day that's a bad idea we have multiple
studies showing that if you have a large
meal at the end of the day that worsens
blood sugar levels and impaires Insulin
responses and I'm going to show some of
those studies on screen now having
breakfast is important and that's why
the current intimate and fasting trials
are examining early time-restricted
feeding as in making sure you're getting
your calories in the morning and fasting
in the evening so let's pull it all
together intimate and fasting can be a
great way for some people to lose weight
and treat their diabetes and if that's
you brilliant but the dark secret is
that it works via calorie restriction in
humans there's no evidence that
something magical is happening Beyond
calorie restriction and there are two
important but fixable problems the first
one is protein most people who practice
intimate and fasting aren't getting
enough protein intake but so long as you
know that you can prioritize your
protein intake and make sure that you're
reaching that 1.6 g of protein intake
per kilogram of body weight per day the
second fixable problem is meal timing
make sure you're getting most of your
calories in the morning compared to the
evening but here's the most important
Point most people to significantly
improve their health should aim to have
a light early dinner and then
immediately brush your teeth that's a
powerful signal that you've finished
eating for the day you want to cut out
the late night eating a general rule of
thumb is to eat breakfast like a king
lunch like a prince and dinner like a
poer and for me personally to make sure
that I'm reaching my micronutrient
intakes I take microv vitamin but please
remember that just because I take a
supplement does not in any way mean that
you should as well in this video I've
talked a lot about protein intake so
make sure to check out this next video
here that goes through that new protein
study in detail and a massive thank you
to all of the patrons supporting the
channel
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