The dangerous effect of intermittent fasting: what a new study by scientists has shown

In addition, the 8:16 nutrition system has proven to be very convenient – you don’t have to throw your favorite foods out of the diet or scrupulously count calories. Just eat for eight hours, then refuse to eat at 4 p.m., that is, have breakfast at 10 a.m. and dinner until 6 p.m.

The GI craze started 10 years ago with an animal experiment: lab mice fed French fries and milkshakes for just eight hours were able to lose weight while control mice gained weight. Newspapers and magazines wrote about the sensation, and hundreds of thousands of their readers switched to ISIS, hoping to shed those extra pounds.

In 2020, a study was conducted with the participation of people – the subjects were overweight and diagnosed obese men and women, whose average weight was 100 kilograms. It turned out that not everything is so rosy with the GI: those who joined it lost less weight than the participants in the control group, and showed a significant loss of muscle mass – 65% of the loss of total weight. Seeing the results, study author Dr. Ethan Weiss
He gave up intermittent fasting, which he adhered to for seven years.

However, other members of the IG were not bothered by the new data: in the end, the subjects still lost weight. However, in 2022, new research by scientists has shown that intermittent fasting is much more dangerous than it first appears.

Researchers at the University of Toronto found that after analyzing data from 2,762 people between the ages of 16 and 30 who adhere to the GI, the diet is associated with eating disorders. In women, it causes overeating, subsequent vomiting, and compulsive exercise, while men are prone only to the latter.

“People often start intermittent fasting to ‘be healthy,’ because that’s how it’s promoted. However, the restrictions can cause other extreme forms of eating behavior. Ignoring hunger leads to it grows, which causes overeating. This in turn involves excessive exercise or induced vomiting,” says registered dietitian Mary Kurnutt.

Read also: Go to dinner! 4 Health Dangers of Malnutrition

Kurnutt thinks people with an eating disorder should never practice intermittent fasting. It should also be avoided by people “who think they have a difficult relationship with food”. Mary points out that we naturally “fast” at night during sleep, and those who want to extend this period without food should consult a good nutritionist before practicing GI.