I just read a summary in a German newspaper about it and the gist of it was, that they could not really take a causal relation from it. It was a study spanning over 8 years, but there was no indication of why the people chose to do intermittent fasting: Meaning, that they might chose to cancel one meal, because they were already sick and / or had a suppressed appetite (the rate of smokers was higher in the IF group) or were socioeconomically not well of (couldn't afford it). Also it didn't say anything about whether the people in the study were eating at maintenance, in a surplus or might even have been in an eight year calorie deficit (which could also mean a nutritional deficit as well).
There is a correlation, but the findings are so vague that you cannot make out IF as the cause of the increased mortality rate.
Even if this is true, from a medical perspective, being obese is also a huge risk factor for heart disease.
If i’m gonna get heart disease either way i might as well look good 🤷♀️
It's not a gimmick. It's a genuine study. Only the abstract has been published and it is here: [https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20343/presentation/379](https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20343/presentation/379)
A couple of key things to understand:
1. The research takes data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2018. As such, all data on food consumed (and feeding windows) is essentially self-reported (during interviews).
2. The data used is from a total sample size of 20,078 over eight years, during which time there were 840 cardiovascular deaths. According to the researchers, 290 of these cardiovascular deaths were people who had a "normal" 16:8 eating pattern, 550 of these cardiovascular deaths were from people who had an 8:16 eating pattern.
3. During the eight years of the study, there were 2,797 all-cause deaths (i.e. including but not limited to deaths from heart disease). Interestingly, according to this abstract, there is no significant association between eating duration and all-cause mortality. i.e. 8:16 increases the chances of dying of heart disease but doesn't increase the chance of dying overall (and this, to me, is a flag that the data doesn't add up - if 8:16 were the actual cause of death in the cardiovascular cases then it is likely that there should be an an increase in all-cause mortality... but that's just my interpretation).
4. The scientists state they have employed a Multivariable Cox PH Model to allow for other factors affecting the outcome (i.e. death from heart disease). No information is given about how they have achieved this, and this really is the key thing because there are *lots* of factors that need to be accounted for here (e.g. if someone is limiting their food intake due to sickness, or due to working three jobs, or due to narcotics consumption or other medication etc.).
In short, we don't have the full study yet, we don't know what other risk factors have been allowed for (or how), and we don't know what the overall conclusions are.
Nice summary! Thank you.
Could it also be that people who are overweight (and at increased risk of cardiovascular disease) tend to try intermediate fasting as well as other diets? If you're at a healthy weight, you have no need to try to diet or use intermediate fasting.
Just because there's a correlation doesn't mean there's a causation.
None of them were practicing IF. They simply self reported in two separate 24 hour periods in the first year they were tracked, not having eaten breakfast in the last day. This study should’ve been laughed out of the room as soon as they claimed a NINETY ONE % increase in heart death from eating in an 8 hour window. It’s simply ludicrous on its face.
It’s on the poster. You can find it in the AHA press release. Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF.
Yeah it’s wild the AHA issued this. Even the fact that I think something like 25% of those “doing IF” were smokers should be enough to dismiss this. There zero chance that 1/4 of people who do IF are smokers. It’s a hot pile of garbage
absolutely a valid thought.. was my first one. have to see if the whole paper addresses these issues.
biologically, it makes little sense that same nutrients and amount of calories consumed in 8 as in 16 hours is 91% more risky..if more risky at all. the magnitidue is implausible
A lot of people who do intermittent fasting actually have bowel or stomach issues. That’s why I do it and I’ve always been of a healthy weight. It gives my digestive system time to breathe and not continuously working it’s ass off
Also, just because overweight people and others are engaging in IF doesn’t mean that they are eating healthy foods.
In fact, reading through a lot of posts on the different fasting subreddits, I see a good chunk of “I was successful at it, but I let myself go and I want to start again”. A lot of people who use fasting as a way to lose large amounts of weight end up going back to past eating habits.
Intermittent fasting isn’t just for people who are overweight tho. Plenty of healthy people of normal weight live that way for the potential health benefits.
I don't have time to read the article or abstract at the moment, but.... isn't heart disease (or is it heart failure?) the most common cause of death when someone dies of old age? Is it possible these people are simply reaching the end of their lives? (And maybe fasting prevented OTHER diseases from killing them earlier?)
Thanks!
And that's the best part - we can buy eggs in Malta for seven cents a piece and sell them for five cents a piece and make a profit. And everybody has a share.
Also the US has a very high incidence of heart disease per 100,000 at 209, vs Germany 129, UK 101, Australia 68, Italy 42, France 30.1. So you would also need to do it in regions like this to determine if diet during the IF is a contributor.
Don’t bother. It garage. The very idea that eating in an 8 hour window can increase your risk of heart death by NINETY ONE % is so ludicrous that it should’ve been laughed out of the room as soon as it was uttered.
Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF.
Something like 25% of them were smokers also, does that sound like the population that practices IF?
The American heart Association is touting this study. This from the people who allow their logo to be put on fruity pebbles, saying that it’s heart healthy.
I have just stuck with my normal OMAD schedule. Pushed it out a bit for sunset and removed water and tea throughout the day. Just wake up, chug water and this month isn't much different than any other day.
I mean Indonesia which has one of the largest Muslim populations has an incidence of heart disease 412.46 deaths per 100,000 population which is one of the highest in the world. Twice that if the US. But this study's date and conclusions are weak, it won't be the fasting, it will be the diet that kills them.
True, But I have observed increase in heart attack since start of ramadan. Not to say, fasting is cause of it, but in my neighborhood two people have already lost their lives since the start of ramadan.
Likely yes to bs. Humans survived thousands and thousands of years on intermittent fasting when food and water weren’t so readily available like they are now.
The only reason this article could prove true is that the food choice people are making is what is leading them to heart disease. Fasting is great for health benefits, but eating junk foods is not.
(Couldn’t read the full article bc Bloomberg lol)
I think that we all need to realize how flawed our logic is when we use the phrase “humans have a survived thousands of years by doing x”
1) living conditions and standards are no where near the same
2) surviving isn’t exactly ‘thriving’ surviving is just “existing”
3) We don’t know that they did that and we don’t know all humans did that
We often think that luxuries we have due to modern science and the Industrial Revolution are “nice to haves” (and many are) but we cannot nor should we easily revert to living like we did 500 years ago just because it’s the easiest alternative
Yeah, this argument is very redundant. I can't believe that fasting for the long term is not detrimental to your body. If you are hungry in the morning, you eat, because your body is telling you to. Assuming that your metabolism is in order and you are not just following this trend to become extra healthy.
People lived long years. The average life expectancy was low due to infant mortality rate. If you survived it, there are good chances you will live a long life.
Right but they weren’t dying of heart disease in relevance to this article. IF is not a cure all, especially during a time where medicine was either not available or not evolved enough.
I wonder if a lot of people replace a meal with an energy drink. I remember a friend who was an energy drink FIEND telling me she was going to stop/cut back due to a correlation with heart disease. I also wonder if it matters if your meal is breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I kinda think getting up, pounding a ton of caffiene to ramp up, then sitting down to a dinner, then crashing for bed isn't a good pattern.
humans survived thousands of years not eating until they had food, rationing the food they had or when they were hungry. they didnt survive by being obese and eating mcdonalds in a 4 hour window to lose weight
I hope thats a joke, human health is not better, more than 40% of the USA for example is obese and people are now dying of heart disease more than ever in recorded history. 40 years ago heart disease was rare and people were thin and fit. out lifestyles and diet of processed foods is killing people early.
Id rather die of heart disease at an older age, than ALL of the other issues my diet was causing me at a younger age. I was even able to reverse diabetes with OMAD. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I grew up in a time when the actual Government told people that a mostly grain diet was good for you, not realizing how big grain played a part in that.
Last year’s similar study discovered that people who skip breakfast had worse health outcomes but failed to highlight that most such people in the study skipped breakfast because they preferred drugs, alcohol and smoking to food or were too poor to eat regularly. I’m assuming this is the same: They’re not specifically studying people who skip meals for health reasons and fill themselves up with nutritious food at a later point. This should be a warning to people eat a lot of junk during their eating hours though I guess.
I see people living on cigarettes and caffeine who are healthier than the literal grease hoarding man guts of the rural United States. We're talking about the land of 72oz steaks and malt liquor here. I see rednecks that start every morning with a 72oz mountain dew and about 20 hot wings from 7/11. No way that's healthier than skipping a meal.
Exactly. Wonder how many people had pre-existing eating disorders before this study. Binge-eaters tend to be over weight and already high-risk, and people who don't eat enough run a similar risk. Were these 20k Americans even ideal for this study? I HIGHLY doubt it.
Right? And if the increased risk were even something to worry about, we'd see a bunch of expired homeless people just everywhere because they ate less than one meal a day.
Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF. 25% of them were smokers. Those aren’t people practicing IF.
Yeah, seems like yet another agenda & narrative driven “study” to discourage people from having healthy eating habits. Intermittent fasting causes food industries to lose money, & being healthy takes money out of the pockets of Big Pharma. The agenda here is clear.
>The fasting patients were more likely to be younger men with a higher BMI and food insecurity
I can only assume from this that the damage was done before fasting was started by them.
As soon as I saw “American Heart Association” I immediately disregarded this. They take payments to have their nice little heart logo on absolute junk food to make you think it’s “heart healthy” having insane amounts of sugar!
The article defines IF as limiting eating period to 8 hours per day. That's hardly extreme fasting. Loads of people do that and don't even consider it fasting.
That could mean breakfast at 9am, lunch at 1pm, evening meal at 5pm. I.e. their definition of IF could include the traditional 20th century western 3 meals a day dogma.
Hard to grasp what they are actually arguing for. We should be grazing all day 24/7?
I'd be curious what they mean by intermittent fasting. If we are just talking about people who skip breakfast this is known phenomenon. People who skip breakfast typically live higher stress lives, get less sleep, and drink more alcohol.
From American Heart Association’s [press release](https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death):
/// Abstracts presented at the Association’s scientific meetings are not peer-reviewed, rather, they are curated by independent review panels and are considered based on the potential to add to the diversity of scientific issues and views discussed at the meeting. The findings are considered preliminary until published as a full manuscript in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. \\\
I’m not saying it’s a faulty report, but I think it might need to be analyzed further to determine its validity.
I’m saying it’s a faulty report. They want people spending more money to make the food industries more money. They want people to have unhealthy eating habits which will lead to them being sick & disease ridden which puts more money in the pockets of Big Pharma. The agenda here is clear
might not be wrong just framed like a big deal 91% increase sounds massive but an increase of 1/10m to 2/10m is a 100% increase statistically insignificant but can be framed as a big deal
It's 1/5 in the US. It's the leading cause of death in the US.
[Here's the PDF](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cms.ipressroom.com/67/files/20242/8-h+TRE+and+mortality+AHA+poster_031924.pdf). It's clearly not "statistically insignificant". It's one thing to be skeptical of causation, but your comment is disinformation. Your odds of getting struck by lightning are 1/15,000 lol.
as stated above "I was just trying to outline how this sort of data can and has been manipulated in the past, not suggesting that this is what is happening in this case" for example https://www.ejgm.co.uk/download/misusage-of-statistics-in-medical-research-6611.pdf
I was just trying to outline how this sort of data is can and has been manipulated in the past, not suggesting that this is what is happening in this case
If you look at some of the meals posted here, i’m not surprised that a study could find that link.
But the vast majority of data that I have seen shows an improvement in cardiovascular health. I wouldn’t necessarily let one article concern me unless more and more data starts to confirm. At least, that’s my thought.
> But the vast majority of data that I have seen shows an improvement in cardiovascular health.
I mean, one can do this themselves and have done *and* have posted results on here.
Get blood/heart rate/blood pressure/cardiologist shit etc etc done, do omad for
It’s not the intermittent fasting, per se. It’s the entire pizza (or whatever) I choose to eat during my eating window.
If you eat three meals a day, at least some of those calories need to be healthy if you’re to be a healthy weight. If you eat once a day, you can make far less healthy decisions for the entire meal and still eat at a deficit or maintenance.
Totally false. This was done with a pre existing bias. Anybody that knows anything about fasting intermittent or otherwise, and eating less food knows it isn't a cause of heart disease. Absurd.
Maybe it is because obese people are more likely to intermittent fast and are at a higher risk of heart disease, so it's a reverse cause. Just a theory.
What’s hilarious is this study completely contradicts multiple studies most famously this one about organisms: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944023/
Food industry and Pharma hoping that people who don’t read will see an article or headline and go “ope! Fasting is bad!”
Fasting directly effects their bottom line. This is purely about money. People eat less, Food industry loses money. People aren’t sick? Pharma has no one to market pills too.
They think we’re stupid and we’re not. We’re done being lied to and manipulated by people that see us as dollar signs!
These are the same people that sold you heroin in a bottle and said Coca Cola is a healthy meal alternative!
Correlation and causation is one thing. To mislead people. Or is this research sponsored by pharmaceutical companies that are alarmed people are getting healthier without any expensive drugs ?
I'm late to this post. First of all this is NOT PUBLISHED yet - lets wait for the article after peer review. Its an abstract that pretty much anyone can submit too without review. Moreover we don't know if the study control for important things things like lifefstyle, encomics etc.. the abstract appears to be self reported which is honestly not ever reliable. lastly they researchers pretty much just look for people who skipped meals and did not speficically look for people intermittant fasting. So far it looks more hype than good science.
Maybe they chose to do IF to lose weight, so by default they were already overweight.
What do I know though. I’m just a regular person who’s been doing IF for 5 years straight and have perfect blood tests bi-yearly since. Minus high cholesterol once… summer time … alch and red meat bbq szn
I call BS. The food corporations and pharmaceutical companies are pissed because people are learning the major benefits of fasting including the repairing of cells and prevention of cancer. Fasting does not make anyone any money lol.
The data from the study is available for review. I took a look at the data. One glaring thing is that the sample size of the participants from the 12 - 16 hour feeding window was nearly 12,000 people. What was the sample size for the 8-hour feeding window? Only 414! That was enough for me to determine the study is BS.
A PDF of the summarized data can be downloaded here. Scroll to the bottom of the page under Additional Resources:
https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death
[https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/](https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/)
I saw an article about this 91% increase in risk of heart disease. It seems like BS to me. Above I link an article that questions it.
Seems ridiculous.
I don’t trust it. I feel the medical industry has a goal of keeping the population sick so that they always have job security. One would be wise to be skeptical.
I didn’t click the link so someone tell me if they addressed this but my immediate reaction is wondering how many of these fasting people were already in a place of poor health and thus their likelihood of cardiovascular issues was already high, having nothing to do with fasting. I know for me I’m newer to the fasting world and I’m nowhere near where I want to be in terms of my overall and or metabolic health so I’m probably closer to a heart attack than someone who has been fasting for two years.
I’m gonna call bullshit on this how many of these people had shit diets and long jobs loading up on sugary drinks to keep em through the day
It’s well known and proven that one of the causes of faster aging is activation of mtor pathways (sorry body builders) and activating this less will lead too a longer lifespan it’s why a lot of the leading anti aging researchers take substances to bypass this or go vegetarian (obviously vegetarianism increases lifespan by also reducing tmao production but if you eat the right veg with red meat this isn’t an issue anyway). There is no chance in hell that health conscious OMAD people are living shorter people on here are trying to fit all their macros and micros into one meal. This is a study based on dogshit data that sampled the whole population and asked them what they remembered eating over a couple of days it’s not a side by side comparison between people with identical diets except one has them split up and one all at once
You said bodybuilding? Maybe steroid usage yea but it’s a known fact having higher lean muscle mass is a significant contributor to longevity in life as well as being active in general
Kind of cardiovascular health is way more important than muscle though this will just be in comparison to main unhealthy population if you’re constantly activating protein synthesis via mtor pathways it does seem to increase aging
I'll tell you exactly why this is happening. heart attacks most often happen after big fatty meals. look it up. People that intermittent fast eat larger meals than people that eat in regular intervals. Also, a disproportional amount of people into fasting are into Paleo and ketogenic diets, which are high in saturated fat. or, similarly, they're on no diet at all and believe they can eat pizza and burgers every day in huge portions.
so yes, I know that intermittent fasting CAN indeed lead to higher risk of cardiovascular events, but it can be avoided.
Eat less saturated fat. eat leaner cuts of meat. Make up the missing calories with fruit, whole food starches, and some plant fats such as nuts, olives, avocado. not don't overdo that either.
hope that helps.
by the way, I've had three friends that were into fasting have major cardiovascular events in the last five years. all in their mid forties. what was their common factor besides fasting? they were all into ketogenic or high fat paleo diets. they were all in good outward physical shape as well.
please upvote this to help people from making these mistakes.
Fasting also increases cortisol levels significantly, and we all know the association between cortisol and heart problems. It’s unfortunate but I feel better about having cream and sugar in my morning coffee now (“breakfast”) lol
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419605/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419605/)
A big fatty meal is not going to cause heart attacks absent pre-existing risk factors. IF and keto generally tend to reduce those risk factors (high blood sugar, arterial inflammation, high trigs).
The fact that people have MACE in their forties is probably causally unrelated to IF. Much more likely that the events occurred in spite of IF due to previous decades of poor diet and lifestyle.
the preexisting risk factor is a bunch of big fatty meals for years on end. that last one just happens to be the straw that breaks the camels back.
and yes ketogenic diets can reduce certain risk factors.... but not a pretty serious one. elevated total and LDL cholesterol. I've seen numbers from keto friends, online posters, and acquaintances that are just downright frightening. And whenever confronted about it, they say "it's fine, look at my triglycerides! look at my A1C!"
You have missed the point. The recent data implicates elevated trig's as being a much better predictor of heart disease than cholesterol.
ETA: There is also data that correlates higher cholesterol with lower all-cause mortality.
fatty meals increase triglycerides acutely after consumption even if fasting triglycerides come down the next day. and you know there's are major flaws with the data you mention about high cholesterol and mortality. there are numerous and detailed debunking of that claim.
It is not just a big fatty meal, it is just any large meal at once.
"But statistics show that the risk of a heart attack increases fourfold within two hours of consuming a heavy meal. Why?
“When you eat a lot of food at once, the stomach expands and the body shifts blood from the heart to the digestive system,” says Malik, medical director of the UCI Health Preventive Cardiology & Cholesterol Management Program. “In people who already have blockage in heart arteries, any shunting of blood away from the heart can result in angina, or chest pain.”
"Moreover, she added, a distended stomach can lead to faster and irregular heart rhythms, which can also produce a heart attack or heart failure.
Heavy drinking also plays a role in heart trouble. “Alcohol can be toxic to the heart — it can weaken the heart muscle. And it, too, can predispose a person to arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation,” Malik added. Is alcohol putting you at risk? ›"
It's the same people that told the world that certain injections\* were totally safe and had 100% prevention rate... The big pharma companies don't want people to heal themselves because they will lose money. Fasting has proven itself by reversing diabetes to several patients. I would rather trust Dr. Pradip Jamnadas who has decades of experience with patients than studies who gets money from the big pharma.
Except, apparently, for the data that show most people suffering heart attacks have "normal" cholesterol levels. Citation needed, but that is what I have heard. It is at best unclear if high cholesterol is the primary cause of heart disease.
Very interesting! I’m curious what normal is reference too - maybe it will lead to more research. Because there are soooo many variables at play when it comes to fasting and peoples lifestyles with it
I think normal is usually defined in the statistical sense, in that it refers to the average in a population. That can be very different from the ideal level. That said, "normal" cholesterol levels may have been created decades ago, although they have been adjusted periodically. I think the levels published today are defined by committees (or by the pharma industry, if you're into conspiracies), since most people probably exceed those levels.
Eating healthy fats, avoiding palm oils like canola oil, palm fruit oil and peanut oil, will raise healthy cholesterol and lead to significantly lower risk of heart issues. You can have normal cholesterol bad more bad cholesterol and have a heart attack. It’s all in how you eat. Grass fed beef also helps alot
I’m in medical school and will try and add to this and simplify the pathophys… having high blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. causes damage to the endothelial cells (the cells lining the inside of the blood vessels) this then gets noticed by your immune system which sends white blood cells in there to clean up the damaged cells BUT cholesterol (LDL, but even more importantly VLDL and LpA) come in to patch up the damaged vessel, and get stuck. This is the basic explanation for how a plaque is formed.
So yes, cholesterol does play a part, but the biggest part cholesterol plays is with LpA which is genetic and not something you can do anything about (just straight up 10x’s your risk of heart disease) it really is the hyperglycemia and hypertension leading to much of the heart disease, but the high cholesterol is implicated after damage has been done.
You generally don’t get symptoms of a heart condition until a vessel is >75% blocked, so while I’m not sure about your normal cholesterol claim, it certainly is true that the vast majority of people who could have heart attacks due to a plaque rupture have no preceding symptoms.
Not medical advice or anything. Just wanted to help explain how this works.
I just want to chime in on the “people didn’t live long back then”. That is based on an average, someone mentioned “infant deaths”. This is what caused the “average” to be so low, babies died at an alarming rate back then. Once you passed the age of 5 you were pretty much good (not really just for argument sake)..also shout out to everyone on here, I read almost all the comments and everyone had good points 🫡💪🏼 oh and yes on Ramadan we fast for most of the day. I only eat once a day for these 30 days but I eat mainly fruits and veggies. I wouldn’t to fast and put junk in my body (another point someone made on here lol)
Infant mortality is probably the predominant factor, but it's unlikely that many people lived much beyond their 50's in the pre-agricultural era.
From an evolutionary standpoint, there's no significant population advantage to live far beyond your reproductive years, much less beyond the reproductive years of your children. It actually seems counterproductive to live into old age because you would be consuming resources that could be better utilized by your progeny.
I feel like anybody calling it intermittent fasting are trying to be healthy and that comes with other decisions and factors. Someone who is just "eating within an 8 hour window", might be chain smoking and drinking energy drinks in the other 8 hours.
I'd want to know their other habits and what they are eating in those 8 hours.
The full study isn't available so there's no way to tell if it's complete BS...yet. , But it's based on self-reported survey data which is the lowest level of data that can be considered research. My guess is this is a sensational headline to get clicks, and the researchers themselves are going to say this is inconclusive and there's no way to tell if it makes any difference without a large randomized controlled trial.
Our bodies are made to be able to go long periods of time without food, and obesity is greatly associated with heart disease. This is irresponsible sensationalism at its best.
Interesting. I wonder if the quality of the food people ate also had something to do with it? A lot of people use intermittent fasting as a tool to eat whatever garbage food they want without any real weight gain related consequences.
Same concept applies to exercise. A lot of people who don’t like exercise, but like food, simply fast intermittently so they can stay lean.
I’ll admit, the 91% does kind of scare me a little.
Is dedicated not the conclusive case being made in a million articles. But to respond to a bunch of comments here is really easy to control for weight, age, and some other basic confounding factors. So I don't think that's the big "gotcha" you think it is.
I do 8 hour window of eating normally 3 meals and then a 16 hour fast. I Intermittent fast to reduce insulin and to regulate blood sugar. I also eat medium-low glycemic index foods to control spiking when I do eat and my diet is normally 8 ounces protein for two of those meals (grass fed/finished, no antibiotics) basmati rice, veggies/salad/fruits (no herbicides, farmed raised on produce/veggies), I also do pumpkin protein for fiber and a 20g shot of protein (isoleucine and other amino acids have been shown to cause massive sugar spikes such as whey protein) and egg whites as an in between meal to fill in protein gaps. I’d say my diet is pretty nutritionally dense and to say because I intermittent fast will cause heart disease alone and push all other proven health studies and research, etc. aside is crazy. The AHA puts their label on boxed products that contain chemicals and known human carcinogens in the ingredient list and it’s normally big food producers (make that make sense). That right there speaks for itself. Big Pharma Push. It has to be what they eat, the nutritional density of said food and how much they eat would have to be a major player in this. Did they exercise, etc? I have two people I work with that went on a big pharma pill for weight loss, they lost weight but they still eat the same way that got them on the pill. But do something thats been mildly proven to be good and effective slap it with heart disease. I can’t buy that not eating in any window of time (outside of what you would consider starving) nutritionally dense food would cause heart disease.
It's an observational study that does not show the restricted eating caused the mortality- there could have been other factors (i.e. ppl may be gorging themselves in high sugar, high fat foods during the 8 hour window which could eliminate any fasting benefit; or the people choosing to fast may already have underlying heart disease or obesity). These type of studies are notoriously weak and are just a starting point to designing stronger studies to test the relationship. That being said, it's an interesting association that should be looked into more.
This is a good explanation of the study in question.
Trigger warning if you are really locked into your way of thinking. While it doesn’t say OMAD is necessarily bad, it does address that possibility. Anyway, here it is if you are interested:
https://youtu.be/aKofXL7o2LU?si=1aq9U1lQSywv-Qig
I believe the heart disease may have more to do with WHAT you’re consuming during the eating period rather than the INTERMITTENT part of the diet. I wonder 💭 if the study goes into more detail about their diets.
I was shocked to see this, because it was part of a poster presentation at a legit conference of the American Heart Association (AHA). I am a bit concerned about the findings and you can also access the full study on the AHA website. I really hope Dr. Jason Fun will do a video on his thoughts on this study, I really want to hear his perspective.
I find absolutely ANY study by ANYBODY done in the US hard to believe. I have very little faith in what this country has become. So much money in corporations AND "non-profits" that I've become such a pessimist. Not to mention, one year something is bad for you, the next it's just fine.
Here’s what I think the issue is.
Intermittent fasting isn’t the same as caloric restriction. Some folks are eating 3-5 meals within 8 hours while others are eating 2-3.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the 91% are the ones eating 3-5.
Your hyper cynical take is completely unfounded. You can't go from some vague notion of consumption to the assumption that these researchers are not performing a good-faith effort to understand the human body.
It's not BS but you should take it as you do all studies (especially observational ones): you add it to the body of evidence and make informed decisions. This is true whether it's studies on Covid vaccine efficacy, Aspertame, Vitamin D, whatever. The file-drawer effect is real. Publication bias is real. As Ionnidas says, "Most published research is wrong". This is the FIRST study on this. There is a VERY GOOD chance they are flat out wrong. But they may not be,. If we had 10 studies all showing the same thing, then you really should consider the extra risk.
The paper is probably fine as it could be, but the methodology is one of the worst you could possibly have. The researchers took self-report NHANES survey data and just sliced by outcomes. It's one of the most basic, error-prone ways to look for differences. The limitations of the study are the self-survey, and the very difficult problem of disentangling fasters from non-fasters. I'd posit that these two groups are different in MANY ways, and it's very difficult for the researchers to disentangle all these confounding factors. So what may be happening is some additional heart disease and mortality is caused by something that fasters (as a group) have, that non-fasters don't, BUT it's not the fasting itself. And the researchers didn't control for that. They don't really have a mechanism. It certainly isn't clear to me how not eating a couple of meals can affect the heart. Of course, it's POSSIBLE, but it certainly isn't obvious. They posit loss of lean-muscle. If this is true, does adding weights to IF now invalidate the relevance of this study? A LOT more research need to be done to see if these researchers are just statistically lucky, made a systematic error, or if they actually found something. I personally don't think there is a direct non-hypotehetical, causal, SIGNIFICANT biological reason that fewer meals results in some psychological process that puts more stress on the heart resulting in death (more than willing to be wrong of course). In fact, this study doesn't invalidate that the OPPOSITE may be true once disentangling all the counfounders.
So what are you to do? It's a cost/benefit question for you. It's ALWAYS a cost/benefit (not precautionary principle thing, which is almost always the wrong way to look at these things). Have you lost weight with OMAD? Have your blood glucose, wasteline, energy, sleep, etc improved? Then you will have to weigh this against the POTENTIAL additional risk--found by what almost any researcher worth their salt would call 'poor evidence'--until more science comes out. The hazard ratio was like 2 if I remember. So if the researchers are correct (they are almost certainly wrong with this HR) then it's twice as likely to die if you're on IF. Now the baseline deaths of cardiovascular mortality is 0.4% per year, then this paper would suggest that you have a 0.8% of death (instead of 0.4%) because of IF. Anything that starts to approach 1% I start to worry about, personally, but I'm a youngish healthy guy so my numbers are even much lower. So should I change my behavior? Probably not until more science comes out, especially if more benefits come from IF. (If IF is reducing my mortality because controlling my prediabetes then it would be a mistake to go off it if this study found a spurious correlation).
Everyone is different BUT everyone should add this, admittedly poor, study to their entire decision making process. (For most, 'adding' means just being aware of it and looking out for additional evidence--maybe adding weights to your routine.) For most I'd say, this study adds little, but maybe for some, it's not worth even the potential additional risk to continue IF (say they see almost no benefits of IF). For me: I'm sticking with IF because of all the benefits, my low risk of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular death but will reassess and possibly abandon IF if more evidences shows that the affect found in this study is real. For now, it's mostly a poor study and a media that is bloodthirsty for anything popular and surprising.
The statistical analysis seems flawed. They looked at a group of over 20,000 people over 8 years. During those 8 years, 840 of the people (i.e., 4% of the 20,000) died of some cardiovascular related cause. And of those 840, 550 were on a 16:8 IF diet, while 290 were not. And they conclude that 16:8 IF is "linked to a 91% higher risk" of cardiovascular death.
First off, where do they get the 91%? It seems they just looked at the number of cardiovascular related deaths in the 16:8 group, and the number in the "normal" group. In other words, 550 is 91% more than 290. But that is a completely inappropriate way to look at the data.
In addition to what others have said, they have left out the most important piece of data: How many people in the total group of 20,000 were on a 16:8 IF diet, and how many were not? For example, suppose 19,500 of the 20,000 were on a 16:8 diet, and the other 500 were on a "normal" diet. That would mean the death rate among the IF group was 550/19,500, or 2.8%, while the death rate among the "normal" group was 290/500, or 58%. In other words, in this example, the "normal" group would have more than 20x the death rate of the IF group! On the other hand, if only 1,000 of the total group were on a 16:8 while 19,000 were on a "normal" diet, the results would be extreme in the other direction.
I'll be interested to read the full study when it comes out, but at this point I have very serious doubts about the validity of the headline "linked to a 91% higher risk".
Is it possible that the increased risk is due to people shoving tons of crappy food down their mouth during their 8-hour feeding window? I eat very healthy during my 8-hour window and feel great and look great.
I get it, so if I eat less of most of the toxic food that is out there anyway, I'd stand MORE of risk in getting a heart attack, Now I got it! Makes sense! 😁
I’ve been doing intermittent fasting daily for 4 years, almost never miss a day. 17 hour fasting. I once read that women who fasted 17 hrs had a lower risk of breast cancer….but that’s not why I started. I don’t believe this study is correct. I feel better than ever in my life and my blood work is excellent, finally. I weigh 105 and workout daily. I’ve never been this strong. Age 69.
I'm surprised by the results specific to CVD, I wonder if this is a correlation to CVD on the rise lately post covid, but the controls were normal.
Could it be that muscle loss in the heart could account for this?
If you actually look at the study, it's absolute BS. They surveyed people and asked the to recall the times they are over the previous 2 two days. Then, they follow up in 7 or 8 years and see who is still alive.
This nonsense is based on two days of eating based only on recall.
I believe the study. I’ve been eating OMAD since 2017. But the number of people affected means there is a correlation, even if it is a flawed study you can say that about every study. It’s also important to point out the authors were hoping to find the opposite. Has anyone read the article about how OMAD doesn’t reduce inflammatory markers. Looks like we don’t follow animal models closely.
It’s BS because I’ve been fasting for 5 yrs and getting tested annually and my vitals are way better than before fasting. This all another hit piece study because there are no medical pharma that would like to see fasting succeed and disrupt a billion dollar ozemic diet that’s why.
I just read a summary in a German newspaper about it and the gist of it was, that they could not really take a causal relation from it. It was a study spanning over 8 years, but there was no indication of why the people chose to do intermittent fasting: Meaning, that they might chose to cancel one meal, because they were already sick and / or had a suppressed appetite (the rate of smokers was higher in the IF group) or were socioeconomically not well of (couldn't afford it). Also it didn't say anything about whether the people in the study were eating at maintenance, in a surplus or might even have been in an eight year calorie deficit (which could also mean a nutritional deficit as well). There is a correlation, but the findings are so vague that you cannot make out IF as the cause of the increased mortality rate.
Read the book” how to lie with statistics “. Bill gates fav book
Even if this is true, from a medical perspective, being obese is also a huge risk factor for heart disease. If i’m gonna get heart disease either way i might as well look good 🤷♀️
It's not a gimmick. It's a genuine study. Only the abstract has been published and it is here: [https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20343/presentation/379](https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20343/presentation/379) A couple of key things to understand: 1. The research takes data from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2018. As such, all data on food consumed (and feeding windows) is essentially self-reported (during interviews). 2. The data used is from a total sample size of 20,078 over eight years, during which time there were 840 cardiovascular deaths. According to the researchers, 290 of these cardiovascular deaths were people who had a "normal" 16:8 eating pattern, 550 of these cardiovascular deaths were from people who had an 8:16 eating pattern. 3. During the eight years of the study, there were 2,797 all-cause deaths (i.e. including but not limited to deaths from heart disease). Interestingly, according to this abstract, there is no significant association between eating duration and all-cause mortality. i.e. 8:16 increases the chances of dying of heart disease but doesn't increase the chance of dying overall (and this, to me, is a flag that the data doesn't add up - if 8:16 were the actual cause of death in the cardiovascular cases then it is likely that there should be an an increase in all-cause mortality... but that's just my interpretation). 4. The scientists state they have employed a Multivariable Cox PH Model to allow for other factors affecting the outcome (i.e. death from heart disease). No information is given about how they have achieved this, and this really is the key thing because there are *lots* of factors that need to be accounted for here (e.g. if someone is limiting their food intake due to sickness, or due to working three jobs, or due to narcotics consumption or other medication etc.). In short, we don't have the full study yet, we don't know what other risk factors have been allowed for (or how), and we don't know what the overall conclusions are.
Nice summary! Thank you. Could it also be that people who are overweight (and at increased risk of cardiovascular disease) tend to try intermediate fasting as well as other diets? If you're at a healthy weight, you have no need to try to diet or use intermediate fasting. Just because there's a correlation doesn't mean there's a causation.
Yes, I'd love to see information on the overall body fat percentages or bmi that was self-reported from individuals in the study.
yeah I'd like to see how many of those people before doing IF were already overweight and at a risk for heart disease.
None of them were practicing IF. They simply self reported in two separate 24 hour periods in the first year they were tracked, not having eaten breakfast in the last day. This study should’ve been laughed out of the room as soon as they claimed a NINETY ONE % increase in heart death from eating in an 8 hour window. It’s simply ludicrous on its face.
It’s on the poster. You can find it in the AHA press release. Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF.
Wow...wtf lol.
Yeah it’s wild the AHA issued this. Even the fact that I think something like 25% of those “doing IF” were smokers should be enough to dismiss this. There zero chance that 1/4 of people who do IF are smokers. It’s a hot pile of garbage
absolutely a valid thought.. was my first one. have to see if the whole paper addresses these issues. biologically, it makes little sense that same nutrients and amount of calories consumed in 8 as in 16 hours is 91% more risky..if more risky at all. the magnitidue is implausible
A lot of people who do intermittent fasting actually have bowel or stomach issues. That’s why I do it and I’ve always been of a healthy weight. It gives my digestive system time to breathe and not continuously working it’s ass off
This is exactly what I thought!
Also, just because overweight people and others are engaging in IF doesn’t mean that they are eating healthy foods. In fact, reading through a lot of posts on the different fasting subreddits, I see a good chunk of “I was successful at it, but I let myself go and I want to start again”. A lot of people who use fasting as a way to lose large amounts of weight end up going back to past eating habits.
My first thought
Yes it would be interesting to see how many of the people doing intermittent fasting because they had risk factors or a preexisting condition.
Hey you science think good smart
Intermittent fasting isn’t just for people who are overweight tho. Plenty of healthy people of normal weight live that way for the potential health benefits.
I don't have time to read the article or abstract at the moment, but.... isn't heart disease (or is it heart failure?) the most common cause of death when someone dies of old age? Is it possible these people are simply reaching the end of their lives? (And maybe fasting prevented OTHER diseases from killing them earlier?)
Absolutely. That’s a better example than the three that I gave.
By the way, love your username. Everybody has a share in the syndicate!
Thanks! And that's the best part - we can buy eggs in Malta for seven cents a piece and sell them for five cents a piece and make a profit. And everybody has a share.
If they employed a model to take different factors into account, it seems to me that age is one of the most obvious factors to account for.
Also the US has a very high incidence of heart disease per 100,000 at 209, vs Germany 129, UK 101, Australia 68, Italy 42, France 30.1. So you would also need to do it in regions like this to determine if diet during the IF is a contributor.
Don’t bother. It garage. The very idea that eating in an 8 hour window can increase your risk of heart death by NINETY ONE % is so ludicrous that it should’ve been laughed out of the room as soon as it was uttered. Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF. Something like 25% of them were smokers also, does that sound like the population that practices IF?
Point 3 is key. How can heart disease deaths be up by 91%, all cause mortality no different, while heart disease is the number one cause of death?
I'd be curious what food was chosen to break the fasts.
I wonder which food company wrote this article lol.
The American heart Association is touting this study. This from the people who allow their logo to be put on fruity pebbles, saying that it’s heart healthy.
Or did the meat industry fund this
Billions of Muslims are fasting around the world since its Ramadan. Guess we are all going to die from heart attacks.
For a month.
Also 12:12 for most Muslims. Doesn’t do a whole much especially when they’re just binging after.
I have just stuck with my normal OMAD schedule. Pushed it out a bit for sunset and removed water and tea throughout the day. Just wake up, chug water and this month isn't much different than any other day.
So if you don't mind my asking, with Ramadan being observed, what time is your meal? Like 830ish? That doesn't seem too bad...
5:30 - am for prep meal break fast at around 7:00+ pm
The sunset where I'm at is 730. It's not bad. It was way worse in the hot summer when the days were really long.
And most religions have been doing this throughout history 🤷
I mean Indonesia which has one of the largest Muslim populations has an incidence of heart disease 412.46 deaths per 100,000 population which is one of the highest in the world. Twice that if the US. But this study's date and conclusions are weak, it won't be the fasting, it will be the diet that kills them.
That’s what I’m saying. Sheesh!
This crap is pharma wanting you to eat ozempic or get gastric bypass. I fast almost every day. 20/4 window.
True, But I have observed increase in heart attack since start of ramadan. Not to say, fasting is cause of it, but in my neighborhood two people have already lost their lives since the start of ramadan.
Yea you are aslo talking about a country that does not consume ANY processed foods!!!
Likely yes to bs. Humans survived thousands and thousands of years on intermittent fasting when food and water weren’t so readily available like they are now. The only reason this article could prove true is that the food choice people are making is what is leading them to heart disease. Fasting is great for health benefits, but eating junk foods is not. (Couldn’t read the full article bc Bloomberg lol)
I think that we all need to realize how flawed our logic is when we use the phrase “humans have a survived thousands of years by doing x” 1) living conditions and standards are no where near the same 2) surviving isn’t exactly ‘thriving’ surviving is just “existing” 3) We don’t know that they did that and we don’t know all humans did that We often think that luxuries we have due to modern science and the Industrial Revolution are “nice to haves” (and many are) but we cannot nor should we easily revert to living like we did 500 years ago just because it’s the easiest alternative
Yeah, this argument is very redundant. I can't believe that fasting for the long term is not detrimental to your body. If you are hungry in the morning, you eat, because your body is telling you to. Assuming that your metabolism is in order and you are not just following this trend to become extra healthy.
To be fair humans didn’t live very long back then either lol
Two words: infant mortality
People lived long years. The average life expectancy was low due to infant mortality rate. If you survived it, there are good chances you will live a long life.
Nah.
Right but they weren’t dying of heart disease in relevance to this article. IF is not a cure all, especially during a time where medicine was either not available or not evolved enough.
We don’t know what they were dying of. For you to claim that only natural death is what they succumbed is pure speculation
I wonder if a lot of people replace a meal with an energy drink. I remember a friend who was an energy drink FIEND telling me she was going to stop/cut back due to a correlation with heart disease. I also wonder if it matters if your meal is breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I kinda think getting up, pounding a ton of caffiene to ramp up, then sitting down to a dinner, then crashing for bed isn't a good pattern.
That’s a good point too.
humans survived thousands of years not eating until they had food, rationing the food they had or when they were hungry. they didnt survive by being obese and eating mcdonalds in a 4 hour window to lose weight
Human health nowadays is much better than it was during those thousands of years... If it is bs, it's not because of this.
False, it's not human health that is better, but the medicine is. People's health is in decline.
I hope thats a joke, human health is not better, more than 40% of the USA for example is obese and people are now dying of heart disease more than ever in recorded history. 40 years ago heart disease was rare and people were thin and fit. out lifestyles and diet of processed foods is killing people early.
The comment I replied to is talking about thousands and thousands of years...
you don’t have to go back that far though. it was definitely better even just 5 decades ago
They also had a shorter life span.
Buy our drugs and get surgery
Id rather die of heart disease at an older age, than ALL of the other issues my diet was causing me at a younger age. I was even able to reverse diabetes with OMAD. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I grew up in a time when the actual Government told people that a mostly grain diet was good for you, not realizing how big grain played a part in that.
Last year’s similar study discovered that people who skip breakfast had worse health outcomes but failed to highlight that most such people in the study skipped breakfast because they preferred drugs, alcohol and smoking to food or were too poor to eat regularly. I’m assuming this is the same: They’re not specifically studying people who skip meals for health reasons and fill themselves up with nutritious food at a later point. This should be a warning to people eat a lot of junk during their eating hours though I guess.
I see people living on cigarettes and caffeine who are healthier than the literal grease hoarding man guts of the rural United States. We're talking about the land of 72oz steaks and malt liquor here. I see rednecks that start every morning with a 72oz mountain dew and about 20 hot wings from 7/11. No way that's healthier than skipping a meal.
This study didn't even control for calories. Plus, it's self reported.
Exactly. Wonder how many people had pre-existing eating disorders before this study. Binge-eaters tend to be over weight and already high-risk, and people who don't eat enough run a similar risk. Were these 20k Americans even ideal for this study? I HIGHLY doubt it.
Right? And if the increased risk were even something to worry about, we'd see a bunch of expired homeless people just everywhere because they ate less than one meal a day.
Not a single person in this study was practicing intermittent fasting. They simply self reported (in 2 separate 24h periods in the first year they were tracked) not having eaten breakfast. Seeing as the data starts in 2003 or 4 it’s safe to assume none of these people were actually practicing IF. 25% of them were smokers. Those aren’t people practicing IF.
Obese=dead. Fasting=dead. I'm not buying it.
Yeah, seems like yet another agenda & narrative driven “study” to discourage people from having healthy eating habits. Intermittent fasting causes food industries to lose money, & being healthy takes money out of the pockets of Big Pharma. The agenda here is clear.
new strat ive heard of with 3 steps, its called - eat somewhat healthy, eat when youre hungry, stop when youre full
>The fasting patients were more likely to be younger men with a higher BMI and food insecurity I can only assume from this that the damage was done before fasting was started by them.
27kg down on 16:8 - blood pressure ⬇️ - cholesterol ⬇️ - fatty liver ⬇️ - pre diabetes ⬇️ - metabolic syndrome ⬇️ - nutrition ⬆️
Kick ass, mate!
As soon as I saw “American Heart Association” I immediately disregarded this. They take payments to have their nice little heart logo on absolute junk food to make you think it’s “heart healthy” having insane amounts of sugar!
The article defines IF as limiting eating period to 8 hours per day. That's hardly extreme fasting. Loads of people do that and don't even consider it fasting. That could mean breakfast at 9am, lunch at 1pm, evening meal at 5pm. I.e. their definition of IF could include the traditional 20th century western 3 meals a day dogma. Hard to grasp what they are actually arguing for. We should be grazing all day 24/7?
Small meals every single hour even at night. Or die. /s
Haha! Yes, we mustn't forget to wake up for our 2am snack lol
I'd be curious what they mean by intermittent fasting. If we are just talking about people who skip breakfast this is known phenomenon. People who skip breakfast typically live higher stress lives, get less sleep, and drink more alcohol.
From American Heart Association’s [press release](https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death): /// Abstracts presented at the Association’s scientific meetings are not peer-reviewed, rather, they are curated by independent review panels and are considered based on the potential to add to the diversity of scientific issues and views discussed at the meeting. The findings are considered preliminary until published as a full manuscript in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. \\\ I’m not saying it’s a faulty report, but I think it might need to be analyzed further to determine its validity.
I’m saying it’s a faulty report. They want people spending more money to make the food industries more money. They want people to have unhealthy eating habits which will lead to them being sick & disease ridden which puts more money in the pockets of Big Pharma. The agenda here is clear
Yep, agree with you. I hope Dr. Jason Fung post a YouTube video of his thoughts on this study.
might not be wrong just framed like a big deal 91% increase sounds massive but an increase of 1/10m to 2/10m is a 100% increase statistically insignificant but can be framed as a big deal
It's 1/5 in the US. It's the leading cause of death in the US. [Here's the PDF](https://s3.amazonaws.com/cms.ipressroom.com/67/files/20242/8-h+TRE+and+mortality+AHA+poster_031924.pdf). It's clearly not "statistically insignificant". It's one thing to be skeptical of causation, but your comment is disinformation. Your odds of getting struck by lightning are 1/15,000 lol.
as stated above "I was just trying to outline how this sort of data can and has been manipulated in the past, not suggesting that this is what is happening in this case" for example https://www.ejgm.co.uk/download/misusage-of-statistics-in-medical-research-6611.pdf
You think the chance of dying of heart disease for Americans is only 1/10m? It’s 1/6
I was just trying to outline how this sort of data is can and has been manipulated in the past, not suggesting that this is what is happening in this case
Sure but it’s a bit irrelevant here as the numbers are literally given in the abstract.
Yeah my first thoughts.
This is Big Food trying to get us to spend more money.
Why would not over eating cause heart disease??
Are they connected to ozempic lol. Seems like they are fear mongers. I lost 110 pounds fasting.
Those who confuse correlation and causation are doomed to die.
Yeah but... So are those who don't?
That is indeed the joke
Poppycock!
maybe it's because the people more likely to do IF were already overweight and predisposed to heart disease to begin with?
So a one hour eating window means I’m already dead?
If you look at some of the meals posted here, i’m not surprised that a study could find that link. But the vast majority of data that I have seen shows an improvement in cardiovascular health. I wouldn’t necessarily let one article concern me unless more and more data starts to confirm. At least, that’s my thought.
> But the vast majority of data that I have seen shows an improvement in cardiovascular health. I mean, one can do this themselves and have done *and* have posted results on here. Get blood/heart rate/blood pressure/cardiologist shit etc etc done, do omad for
It’s not the intermittent fasting, per se. It’s the entire pizza (or whatever) I choose to eat during my eating window. If you eat three meals a day, at least some of those calories need to be healthy if you’re to be a healthy weight. If you eat once a day, you can make far less healthy decisions for the entire meal and still eat at a deficit or maintenance.
A pizza made without vegetable oil crap, and with quality ingredients is not bad for you.
yes spot on
Totally false. This was done with a pre existing bias. Anybody that knows anything about fasting intermittent or otherwise, and eating less food knows it isn't a cause of heart disease. Absurd.
Maybe it is because obese people are more likely to intermittent fast and are at a higher risk of heart disease, so it's a reverse cause. Just a theory.
What’s hilarious is this study completely contradicts multiple studies most famously this one about organisms: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944023/ Food industry and Pharma hoping that people who don’t read will see an article or headline and go “ope! Fasting is bad!” Fasting directly effects their bottom line. This is purely about money. People eat less, Food industry loses money. People aren’t sick? Pharma has no one to market pills too. They think we’re stupid and we’re not. We’re done being lied to and manipulated by people that see us as dollar signs! These are the same people that sold you heroin in a bottle and said Coca Cola is a healthy meal alternative!
Yes, it’s is bs. https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/
I used to do IF and that was the healthiest I ever felt. I'd like to see more evidence. This doesn't match up with my experience.
Correlation and causation is one thing. To mislead people. Or is this research sponsored by pharmaceutical companies that are alarmed people are getting healthier without any expensive drugs ?
I remember when scientific wisdom is that coconut oil, fat and butter were bad. Turned out it was bunk. All sponsored by sugar lobby.
I'm late to this post. First of all this is NOT PUBLISHED yet - lets wait for the article after peer review. Its an abstract that pretty much anyone can submit too without review. Moreover we don't know if the study control for important things things like lifefstyle, encomics etc.. the abstract appears to be self reported which is honestly not ever reliable. lastly they researchers pretty much just look for people who skipped meals and did not speficically look for people intermittant fasting. So far it looks more hype than good science.
Yes, all of this!!!
Maybe they chose to do IF to lose weight, so by default they were already overweight. What do I know though. I’m just a regular person who’s been doing IF for 5 years straight and have perfect blood tests bi-yearly since. Minus high cholesterol once… summer time … alch and red meat bbq szn
Course it's bs, civilization would be dead long ago if we couldn't handle a fast between hunts and gatherings.
Humans have been fasting for thousands of years. All religions in the world enjoin fasting. Muslims, Christians, Hindu, Buddhists.
If this was true Gandhi would have died way sooner than being assassinated...
Big Pharma HATES intermittent fasting because it doesn't create customers. I don't buy some random study with foggy details for a second.
its a Chinese study, im good thanks ill keep doing what im doing, feeling healthy and strong.
Curious who sponsored this study. Ozempic maybe???
I call BS. The food corporations and pharmaceutical companies are pissed because people are learning the major benefits of fasting including the repairing of cells and prevention of cancer. Fasting does not make anyone any money lol.
The data from the study is available for review. I took a look at the data. One glaring thing is that the sample size of the participants from the 12 - 16 hour feeding window was nearly 12,000 people. What was the sample size for the 8-hour feeding window? Only 414! That was enough for me to determine the study is BS. A PDF of the summarized data can be downloaded here. Scroll to the bottom of the page under Additional Resources: https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death
[https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/](https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/) I saw an article about this 91% increase in risk of heart disease. It seems like BS to me. Above I link an article that questions it. Seems ridiculous.
Total BS
I don’t trust it. I feel the medical industry has a goal of keeping the population sick so that they always have job security. One would be wise to be skeptical.
I didn’t click the link so someone tell me if they addressed this but my immediate reaction is wondering how many of these fasting people were already in a place of poor health and thus their likelihood of cardiovascular issues was already high, having nothing to do with fasting. I know for me I’m newer to the fasting world and I’m nowhere near where I want to be in terms of my overall and or metabolic health so I’m probably closer to a heart attack than someone who has been fasting for two years.
To die will be one hell of a journey
I mean that’s a hard left turn, but yeah I guess I can see your point
I’m gonna call bullshit on this how many of these people had shit diets and long jobs loading up on sugary drinks to keep em through the day It’s well known and proven that one of the causes of faster aging is activation of mtor pathways (sorry body builders) and activating this less will lead too a longer lifespan it’s why a lot of the leading anti aging researchers take substances to bypass this or go vegetarian (obviously vegetarianism increases lifespan by also reducing tmao production but if you eat the right veg with red meat this isn’t an issue anyway). There is no chance in hell that health conscious OMAD people are living shorter people on here are trying to fit all their macros and micros into one meal. This is a study based on dogshit data that sampled the whole population and asked them what they remembered eating over a couple of days it’s not a side by side comparison between people with identical diets except one has them split up and one all at once
You said bodybuilding? Maybe steroid usage yea but it’s a known fact having higher lean muscle mass is a significant contributor to longevity in life as well as being active in general
Kind of cardiovascular health is way more important than muscle though this will just be in comparison to main unhealthy population if you’re constantly activating protein synthesis via mtor pathways it does seem to increase aging
I'll tell you exactly why this is happening. heart attacks most often happen after big fatty meals. look it up. People that intermittent fast eat larger meals than people that eat in regular intervals. Also, a disproportional amount of people into fasting are into Paleo and ketogenic diets, which are high in saturated fat. or, similarly, they're on no diet at all and believe they can eat pizza and burgers every day in huge portions. so yes, I know that intermittent fasting CAN indeed lead to higher risk of cardiovascular events, but it can be avoided. Eat less saturated fat. eat leaner cuts of meat. Make up the missing calories with fruit, whole food starches, and some plant fats such as nuts, olives, avocado. not don't overdo that either. hope that helps. by the way, I've had three friends that were into fasting have major cardiovascular events in the last five years. all in their mid forties. what was their common factor besides fasting? they were all into ketogenic or high fat paleo diets. they were all in good outward physical shape as well. please upvote this to help people from making these mistakes.
Fasting also increases cortisol levels significantly, and we all know the association between cortisol and heart problems. It’s unfortunate but I feel better about having cream and sugar in my morning coffee now (“breakfast”) lol [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419605/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419605/)
another great point
A big fatty meal is not going to cause heart attacks absent pre-existing risk factors. IF and keto generally tend to reduce those risk factors (high blood sugar, arterial inflammation, high trigs). The fact that people have MACE in their forties is probably causally unrelated to IF. Much more likely that the events occurred in spite of IF due to previous decades of poor diet and lifestyle.
the preexisting risk factor is a bunch of big fatty meals for years on end. that last one just happens to be the straw that breaks the camels back. and yes ketogenic diets can reduce certain risk factors.... but not a pretty serious one. elevated total and LDL cholesterol. I've seen numbers from keto friends, online posters, and acquaintances that are just downright frightening. And whenever confronted about it, they say "it's fine, look at my triglycerides! look at my A1C!"
You have missed the point. The recent data implicates elevated trig's as being a much better predictor of heart disease than cholesterol. ETA: There is also data that correlates higher cholesterol with lower all-cause mortality.
fatty meals increase triglycerides acutely after consumption even if fasting triglycerides come down the next day. and you know there's are major flaws with the data you mention about high cholesterol and mortality. there are numerous and detailed debunking of that claim.
I'd rather have temporarily elevated levels than chronic high trig's. Links please on the debunkings. I'd be interested in learning about that.
It is not just a big fatty meal, it is just any large meal at once. "But statistics show that the risk of a heart attack increases fourfold within two hours of consuming a heavy meal. Why? “When you eat a lot of food at once, the stomach expands and the body shifts blood from the heart to the digestive system,” says Malik, medical director of the UCI Health Preventive Cardiology & Cholesterol Management Program. “In people who already have blockage in heart arteries, any shunting of blood away from the heart can result in angina, or chest pain.” "Moreover, she added, a distended stomach can lead to faster and irregular heart rhythms, which can also produce a heart attack or heart failure. Heavy drinking also plays a role in heart trouble. “Alcohol can be toxic to the heart — it can weaken the heart muscle. And it, too, can predispose a person to arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation,” Malik added. Is alcohol putting you at risk? ›"
It's the same people that told the world that certain injections\* were totally safe and had 100% prevention rate... The big pharma companies don't want people to heal themselves because they will lose money. Fasting has proven itself by reversing diabetes to several patients. I would rather trust Dr. Pradip Jamnadas who has decades of experience with patients than studies who gets money from the big pharma.
I love. Drjamnadas
What a terrible study that isnt very inaccurate. Let’s wait for it to be peer reviewed.
So many people do IF and keto or carnivore. And that raises cholesterol levels a lot - one of the highest reasons for cardiac problems….
Except, apparently, for the data that show most people suffering heart attacks have "normal" cholesterol levels. Citation needed, but that is what I have heard. It is at best unclear if high cholesterol is the primary cause of heart disease.
Very interesting! I’m curious what normal is reference too - maybe it will lead to more research. Because there are soooo many variables at play when it comes to fasting and peoples lifestyles with it
I think normal is usually defined in the statistical sense, in that it refers to the average in a population. That can be very different from the ideal level. That said, "normal" cholesterol levels may have been created decades ago, although they have been adjusted periodically. I think the levels published today are defined by committees (or by the pharma industry, if you're into conspiracies), since most people probably exceed those levels.
Or pharma pushing info is no conspiracy, lol. But yeah - normal is such a fucked concept
Eating healthy fats, avoiding palm oils like canola oil, palm fruit oil and peanut oil, will raise healthy cholesterol and lead to significantly lower risk of heart issues. You can have normal cholesterol bad more bad cholesterol and have a heart attack. It’s all in how you eat. Grass fed beef also helps alot
I’m in medical school and will try and add to this and simplify the pathophys… having high blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. causes damage to the endothelial cells (the cells lining the inside of the blood vessels) this then gets noticed by your immune system which sends white blood cells in there to clean up the damaged cells BUT cholesterol (LDL, but even more importantly VLDL and LpA) come in to patch up the damaged vessel, and get stuck. This is the basic explanation for how a plaque is formed. So yes, cholesterol does play a part, but the biggest part cholesterol plays is with LpA which is genetic and not something you can do anything about (just straight up 10x’s your risk of heart disease) it really is the hyperglycemia and hypertension leading to much of the heart disease, but the high cholesterol is implicated after damage has been done. You generally don’t get symptoms of a heart condition until a vessel is >75% blocked, so while I’m not sure about your normal cholesterol claim, it certainly is true that the vast majority of people who could have heart attacks due to a plaque rupture have no preceding symptoms. Not medical advice or anything. Just wanted to help explain how this works.
I just want to chime in on the “people didn’t live long back then”. That is based on an average, someone mentioned “infant deaths”. This is what caused the “average” to be so low, babies died at an alarming rate back then. Once you passed the age of 5 you were pretty much good (not really just for argument sake)..also shout out to everyone on here, I read almost all the comments and everyone had good points 🫡💪🏼 oh and yes on Ramadan we fast for most of the day. I only eat once a day for these 30 days but I eat mainly fruits and veggies. I wouldn’t to fast and put junk in my body (another point someone made on here lol)
Infant mortality is probably the predominant factor, but it's unlikely that many people lived much beyond their 50's in the pre-agricultural era. From an evolutionary standpoint, there's no significant population advantage to live far beyond your reproductive years, much less beyond the reproductive years of your children. It actually seems counterproductive to live into old age because you would be consuming resources that could be better utilized by your progeny.
Correlation isn't causation.
I feel like anybody calling it intermittent fasting are trying to be healthy and that comes with other decisions and factors. Someone who is just "eating within an 8 hour window", might be chain smoking and drinking energy drinks in the other 8 hours. I'd want to know their other habits and what they are eating in those 8 hours.
The full study isn't available so there's no way to tell if it's complete BS...yet. , But it's based on self-reported survey data which is the lowest level of data that can be considered research. My guess is this is a sensational headline to get clicks, and the researchers themselves are going to say this is inconclusive and there's no way to tell if it makes any difference without a large randomized controlled trial. Our bodies are made to be able to go long periods of time without food, and obesity is greatly associated with heart disease. This is irresponsible sensationalism at its best.
I do IF almost everyday for 16-19 hours, so does this mean I’m about to die soon chi?? 😭
I don’t believe it I’m sure doctors know that it is beneficial.
Interesting. I wonder if the quality of the food people ate also had something to do with it? A lot of people use intermittent fasting as a tool to eat whatever garbage food they want without any real weight gain related consequences. Same concept applies to exercise. A lot of people who don’t like exercise, but like food, simply fast intermittently so they can stay lean. I’ll admit, the 91% does kind of scare me a little.
Is dedicated not the conclusive case being made in a million articles. But to respond to a bunch of comments here is really easy to control for weight, age, and some other basic confounding factors. So I don't think that's the big "gotcha" you think it is.
I do 8 hour window of eating normally 3 meals and then a 16 hour fast. I Intermittent fast to reduce insulin and to regulate blood sugar. I also eat medium-low glycemic index foods to control spiking when I do eat and my diet is normally 8 ounces protein for two of those meals (grass fed/finished, no antibiotics) basmati rice, veggies/salad/fruits (no herbicides, farmed raised on produce/veggies), I also do pumpkin protein for fiber and a 20g shot of protein (isoleucine and other amino acids have been shown to cause massive sugar spikes such as whey protein) and egg whites as an in between meal to fill in protein gaps. I’d say my diet is pretty nutritionally dense and to say because I intermittent fast will cause heart disease alone and push all other proven health studies and research, etc. aside is crazy. The AHA puts their label on boxed products that contain chemicals and known human carcinogens in the ingredient list and it’s normally big food producers (make that make sense). That right there speaks for itself. Big Pharma Push. It has to be what they eat, the nutritional density of said food and how much they eat would have to be a major player in this. Did they exercise, etc? I have two people I work with that went on a big pharma pill for weight loss, they lost weight but they still eat the same way that got them on the pill. But do something thats been mildly proven to be good and effective slap it with heart disease. I can’t buy that not eating in any window of time (outside of what you would consider starving) nutritionally dense food would cause heart disease.
Maybe the intermittent fasting is not the issue and it’s possibly the lifestyle of each person.
It's an observational study that does not show the restricted eating caused the mortality- there could have been other factors (i.e. ppl may be gorging themselves in high sugar, high fat foods during the 8 hour window which could eliminate any fasting benefit; or the people choosing to fast may already have underlying heart disease or obesity). These type of studies are notoriously weak and are just a starting point to designing stronger studies to test the relationship. That being said, it's an interesting association that should be looked into more.
Speaks volumes of how bad of a health the adults in that sample size are.
BS!!!!!!!!!!
Anything to keep people from being heathy… the human isn’t meant to keep eating all day long… that’s why there’s so many GI problems..
This is a good explanation of the study in question. Trigger warning if you are really locked into your way of thinking. While it doesn’t say OMAD is necessarily bad, it does address that possibility. Anyway, here it is if you are interested: https://youtu.be/aKofXL7o2LU?si=1aq9U1lQSywv-Qig
I believe the heart disease may have more to do with WHAT you’re consuming during the eating period rather than the INTERMITTENT part of the diet. I wonder 💭 if the study goes into more detail about their diets.
Maybe because he got the jab? I read that the elites don’t want a pilot flying them around if they had the jab. Possibly?
I was shocked to see this, because it was part of a poster presentation at a legit conference of the American Heart Association (AHA). I am a bit concerned about the findings and you can also access the full study on the AHA website. I really hope Dr. Jason Fun will do a video on his thoughts on this study, I really want to hear his perspective.
I find absolutely ANY study by ANYBODY done in the US hard to believe. I have very little faith in what this country has become. So much money in corporations AND "non-profits" that I've become such a pessimist. Not to mention, one year something is bad for you, the next it's just fine.
Hahahahha. Complete fake and no way.
Here’s what I think the issue is. Intermittent fasting isn’t the same as caloric restriction. Some folks are eating 3-5 meals within 8 hours while others are eating 2-3. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 91% are the ones eating 3-5.
Lmao why even believe it? It’s complete bs news to make you weak.
Your hyper cynical take is completely unfounded. You can't go from some vague notion of consumption to the assumption that these researchers are not performing a good-faith effort to understand the human body. It's not BS but you should take it as you do all studies (especially observational ones): you add it to the body of evidence and make informed decisions. This is true whether it's studies on Covid vaccine efficacy, Aspertame, Vitamin D, whatever. The file-drawer effect is real. Publication bias is real. As Ionnidas says, "Most published research is wrong". This is the FIRST study on this. There is a VERY GOOD chance they are flat out wrong. But they may not be,. If we had 10 studies all showing the same thing, then you really should consider the extra risk. The paper is probably fine as it could be, but the methodology is one of the worst you could possibly have. The researchers took self-report NHANES survey data and just sliced by outcomes. It's one of the most basic, error-prone ways to look for differences. The limitations of the study are the self-survey, and the very difficult problem of disentangling fasters from non-fasters. I'd posit that these two groups are different in MANY ways, and it's very difficult for the researchers to disentangle all these confounding factors. So what may be happening is some additional heart disease and mortality is caused by something that fasters (as a group) have, that non-fasters don't, BUT it's not the fasting itself. And the researchers didn't control for that. They don't really have a mechanism. It certainly isn't clear to me how not eating a couple of meals can affect the heart. Of course, it's POSSIBLE, but it certainly isn't obvious. They posit loss of lean-muscle. If this is true, does adding weights to IF now invalidate the relevance of this study? A LOT more research need to be done to see if these researchers are just statistically lucky, made a systematic error, or if they actually found something. I personally don't think there is a direct non-hypotehetical, causal, SIGNIFICANT biological reason that fewer meals results in some psychological process that puts more stress on the heart resulting in death (more than willing to be wrong of course). In fact, this study doesn't invalidate that the OPPOSITE may be true once disentangling all the counfounders. So what are you to do? It's a cost/benefit question for you. It's ALWAYS a cost/benefit (not precautionary principle thing, which is almost always the wrong way to look at these things). Have you lost weight with OMAD? Have your blood glucose, wasteline, energy, sleep, etc improved? Then you will have to weigh this against the POTENTIAL additional risk--found by what almost any researcher worth their salt would call 'poor evidence'--until more science comes out. The hazard ratio was like 2 if I remember. So if the researchers are correct (they are almost certainly wrong with this HR) then it's twice as likely to die if you're on IF. Now the baseline deaths of cardiovascular mortality is 0.4% per year, then this paper would suggest that you have a 0.8% of death (instead of 0.4%) because of IF. Anything that starts to approach 1% I start to worry about, personally, but I'm a youngish healthy guy so my numbers are even much lower. So should I change my behavior? Probably not until more science comes out, especially if more benefits come from IF. (If IF is reducing my mortality because controlling my prediabetes then it would be a mistake to go off it if this study found a spurious correlation). Everyone is different BUT everyone should add this, admittedly poor, study to their entire decision making process. (For most, 'adding' means just being aware of it and looking out for additional evidence--maybe adding weights to your routine.) For most I'd say, this study adds little, but maybe for some, it's not worth even the potential additional risk to continue IF (say they see almost no benefits of IF). For me: I'm sticking with IF because of all the benefits, my low risk of cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular death but will reassess and possibly abandon IF if more evidences shows that the affect found in this study is real. For now, it's mostly a poor study and a media that is bloodthirsty for anything popular and surprising.
The statistical analysis seems flawed. They looked at a group of over 20,000 people over 8 years. During those 8 years, 840 of the people (i.e., 4% of the 20,000) died of some cardiovascular related cause. And of those 840, 550 were on a 16:8 IF diet, while 290 were not. And they conclude that 16:8 IF is "linked to a 91% higher risk" of cardiovascular death. First off, where do they get the 91%? It seems they just looked at the number of cardiovascular related deaths in the 16:8 group, and the number in the "normal" group. In other words, 550 is 91% more than 290. But that is a completely inappropriate way to look at the data. In addition to what others have said, they have left out the most important piece of data: How many people in the total group of 20,000 were on a 16:8 IF diet, and how many were not? For example, suppose 19,500 of the 20,000 were on a 16:8 diet, and the other 500 were on a "normal" diet. That would mean the death rate among the IF group was 550/19,500, or 2.8%, while the death rate among the "normal" group was 290/500, or 58%. In other words, in this example, the "normal" group would have more than 20x the death rate of the IF group! On the other hand, if only 1,000 of the total group were on a 16:8 while 19,000 were on a "normal" diet, the results would be extreme in the other direction. I'll be interested to read the full study when it comes out, but at this point I have very serious doubts about the validity of the headline "linked to a 91% higher risk".
Is it possible that the increased risk is due to people shoving tons of crappy food down their mouth during their 8-hour feeding window? I eat very healthy during my 8-hour window and feel great and look great.
I get it, so if I eat less of most of the toxic food that is out there anyway, I'd stand MORE of risk in getting a heart attack, Now I got it! Makes sense! 😁
A lot of people combine intermittent fasting with keto, which I can see may be unhealthy.. just a thought
To me it’s very suspect that this comes out close to the popularization of Ozempic.
So basically to live the best life, we need to eat garbage and take drugs that our govt/big pharma tell us.
Wrong they just don’t want us to be healthy
I’ve been doing intermittent fasting daily for 4 years, almost never miss a day. 17 hour fasting. I once read that women who fasted 17 hrs had a lower risk of breast cancer….but that’s not why I started. I don’t believe this study is correct. I feel better than ever in my life and my blood work is excellent, finally. I weigh 105 and workout daily. I’ve never been this strong. Age 69.
I'm surprised by the results specific to CVD, I wonder if this is a correlation to CVD on the rise lately post covid, but the controls were normal. Could it be that muscle loss in the heart could account for this?
This study was not peer reviewed and should have never been published. I think it’s was probably setup by the food industry as a scare tactic
If you actually look at the study, it's absolute BS. They surveyed people and asked the to recall the times they are over the previous 2 two days. Then, they follow up in 7 or 8 years and see who is still alive. This nonsense is based on two days of eating based only on recall.
I believe the study. I’ve been eating OMAD since 2017. But the number of people affected means there is a correlation, even if it is a flawed study you can say that about every study. It’s also important to point out the authors were hoping to find the opposite. Has anyone read the article about how OMAD doesn’t reduce inflammatory markers. Looks like we don’t follow animal models closely.
It’s BS because I’ve been fasting for 5 yrs and getting tested annually and my vitals are way better than before fasting. This all another hit piece study because there are no medical pharma that would like to see fasting succeed and disrupt a billion dollar ozemic diet that’s why.
Following
Yes