A team of scientists led by the University of Granada (UGR), The Public University of Navarra (UPNA) and Ciber demonstrated that intermittent fasting (reducing the number of hours of eating and prolonging the hours of fasting each day) is an effective method for losing weight and improves cardiovascular health in people with obesity problems.
As reported this Wednesday by the UGR, this work, published in the magazine ‘Nature Medicine’revealed that having the last meal before 5 p.m. and then not having dinner at night is a safe and effective strategy for reduce abdominal subcutaneous fat, That is, the fat you have just under the skin, especially after periods of excess like Christmas.
Overweight and obesity in Spain
In Spain, the prevalence of overweight and obesity reaches 70% in men and 50% in womenwhich is associated with multiple metabolic alterations such as diabetes type 2 and exponentially increases the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases, hypertension and certain types of cancer.
This alarming weight gain in the population not only impacts people’s quality of life, but also represents a great challenge for the public health system. For this reason, scientific research is working intensely to implement effective, but at the same time simple, strategies to treat this problem that is already considered a disease.
Calorie restriction diets They help you lose weight and improve cardiovascular health. However, they are not easy to maintain in the long term and tend to lead most people to end up abandoning treatment and therefore regain the lost weight, and even gain more than their starting weight.
Nutritional strategies
Given the difficulties of maintaining adherence to traditional calorie restriction, new nutritional strategies emerge. One of them is intermittent fasting, which consists of alternating periods of eating with periods of fasting that range from hours to days.
A type of intermittent fasting that has gained popularity in recent years is one that reduces the number of hours of eating and prolongs the hours of fasting each day. It is known as time restriction of food intake, from the English time-restricted eating.
Normally, in Spain, people have their first breakfast between 7 and 8 in the morning and dinner between 9 and 10 at night, therefore, they have an intake window of 12 to 14 hours.
In this type of intermittent fasting, the intake window is reduced from 12-14 hours to between 6 and 8 hours, and you fast for 16-18 hours. This nutritional strategy helps maintain a daily cycle of intake and fasting, which stabilizes the biological rhythms of our body.
Alteration of rhythms
It is known that eating irregularly or at night alters these rhythms and increases the risk of obesitycardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes.
In addition, all people participating in the study also received standard treatment, which consisted of a nutritional education program on the Mediterranean diet and healthy lifestyles. In this multicenter randomized controlled trial, carried out in Granada and Pamplona, a total of 197 people (50% women) between 30 and 60 years of age participated.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: treatment as usual (49 participants), early fasting (49 participants), late fasting (52 participants), or self-selected fasting (47 participants).
The results of the study revealed that intermittent fasting did not show additional benefits to a nutritional education program in reducing visceral fat.
How much weight do you lose with intermittent fasting?
However, the groups that fasted, regardless of the time of intake, achieved greater weight loss, on average 3-4 kg, compared to the usual treatment group that continued with its intake window of at least 12 hours. It is noteworthy that the early fasting group reduced abdominal subcutaneous fat to a greater extent, that is, the fat we have just under the skin.
The study also assessed fasting glucose levels and 24-hour glucose using a continuous glucose monitor worn by participants for 14 days before and at the end of the intervention. The results show that the early fasting group significantly improved fasting glucose levels and overnight glucose compared to the rest of the groups.
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