RCT of Intermittent Fasting

Conclusion: &quot;Time-restricted eating, in the absence of other interventions, is not more effective in weight loss than eating throughout the day.&quot;<p>It is a pet peeve when a failure to reject the null hypothesis is reported (in confident language) as a confirmation of the null hypothesis. However, I do appreciate how clear the results section is in breaking down exactly what they did measure: both groups lost weight, and the time-restricted group lost more but not significantly more in the overall study.

As someone who&#x27;s had Extensive experience with fasting, both intermittent and extended, I would hardly even consider this study &#x27;Time Restricted Eating&#x27; much less fasting.

There doesn&#x27;t seem to be any information regarding adherence to the protocol. Did the participants manage to keep to either strictly Intermittent Fasting or a stern 3-meals-per-day-and-nothing-else program? Considering that the participants were all &quot;Overweight&quot; or &quot;Obese&quot;, implying that the participants have historical issues with portion&#x2F;calorie-intake control, that seems like a pretty important point to ignore.

I think the fact that the time-restricted eating group did slightly better than the consistent meal timing group is actually pretty strong evidence that intermittent fasting is effective. At least for me, it is much easier to only eat during a certain time period than to hold to a 3 meal a day schedule, so the fact that the groups performed similarly shows a lot of the value of intermittent fasting - same results with simpler rules.<p>Also I&#x27;m surprised that a 1% drop in body weight across ~100 participants gives statistically significant results - isn&#x27;t that pretty well within daily fluctuation due to water intake? I would imagine most people who are trying to lose weight are aiming to lose more like 10% than 1%.

One group has 3 calorie restricted meals and another has an 8 hour window where they eat whatever amount they want....<p>Useless.

I do 16:8 to maintain weight. To lose weight, I&#x27;d do OMAD (One Meal A Day)

Anecdote: I tried 16:8 intermittent fasting for a month (it wasn’t hard considering the lockdown situation). I gained 4lbs (156lbs to 160lbs).<p>No claims are being made of mine being a proper experiment. Just sharing the observation. I generally don’t focus on weight. I did not do it to lose weight. My best guess is that my overall calorie intake went up as I fit all meals in that 8hr window.

I did this for years, and, it was the easiest way to cut calories and get quite lean, but really not great for life in general. Now I have a revolutionary new diet: “Eat when you are hungry. Don’t eat when you are not hungry.” Also choose things that digest slowly. I am not nearly as lean as I was on IF, but I also think I was losing muscle, which is a lot harder to gain back than the fat was to lose. Also I don’t have anybody to impress anymore, so, don’t really care. Side note, using IF as a social excuse against eating is a lot easier than “I don’t feel like it”.

These people were significantly overweight, from almost obese to morbidly obese(by BMI). From such a starting condition initial weight loss can be extremely rapid, yet after 12 weeks they lost only .94 kg?

From my reading it sounds like calories eaten were not controlled between the two groups? Surely the study would be much more useful if the groups consumed the same number of calories per week?<p>If fasting results in wanting to eat less&#x2F;more it&#x27;s going to be completely unsurprising for that to result in more&#x2F;less weight loss respectively, any weight loss due to the fasting itself, as opposed to standard calorie restriction is going to be difficult to extract from the data without a very large sample size.

_When_ you eat your food has never directly related to weight loss, but by restricting your eating window, it is easier psychologically to not exceed your calorie limits for a given day than trying to stay within the calorie limit, but eating whenever you want.<p>I am curious if there is a study on if participants that use IF alongside calorie restrictive diet are able lose weight faster than people that don&#x27;t fast.

This compares 3 &#x27;structured&#x27; meals a day, to ad libidum eating over an 8 hour window.<p>...what&#x27;s the point? why would anyone conduct this study, how does precisely three meals with pre-calculated caloric value relate in any way to eating as much as you want in 8 hours.

Isn&#x27;t this supposed to be the conclusion?<p>&quot;In the in-person cohort (n = 50), there was a significant decrease in weight in the TRE group using the in-person weight measurements but not in the CMT group &quot; ?

How does one fund such a terribly designed study in the first place? I too, have got a few bridges to sell...

I’d be interested to see the impact to insulin between both groups vs their baseline.

What is RCT? This is not in the title of the linked article.

n=116 is not high power enough to make a strong claim that it is not more effective, only that they were unable to prove that it was effective.

i have no dog in this fight, but it worth noting that a n of 116 likely has pretty low statistical power.