Does intermittent fasting work?

A new study has found that people who restricted their eating to a 10-hour window enjoyed various health benefits

WHAT if a clock did a better job than a scale at promoting weight loss, improving sleep and preventing diabetes? New research suggests it’s about time to consider that possibility.

In an early effort to explore the benefits of daily fasting in humans, researchers have found that people who are at high risk of developing diabetes improved their health in myriad ways when they ate all of their meals over a span of just over 10 hours, then fasted for the remainder of their 24-hour day.

The regimen, called “time-restricted eating,” is a variant of “intermittent fasting” - a practice growing in popularity. To lose weight or improve health, those fasting intermittently don’t eat - or follow a spartan diet that mimics fasting - for a day or more every week or month.

Time-restricted eating, by contrast, limits a person to consuming all of his or her daily calories in a relatively narrow window - say, from 8am to 6pm. Practiced daily, timerestricted eating widens the period during which the body’s major visceral organs are put into a state of rest and recovery.

Ample research has shown that erratic eating patterns, shiftwork, and modern-day habits like get-up-and-go breakfasts and midnight snacks have contributed to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Satchidananda Panda, a biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, said that by establishing a consistent daily cycle of feeding and fasting, one might realign the ebb and flow of fuel intake with the body’s natural circadian rhythms.

“Every cell, every organ has its clock, and every organ needs downtime to repair, reset and regain its rhythm,“Panda said.

“When all your organs have rested and rejuvenated every day, they just work well,” he added. “It’s almost like an orchestra: when all the musical instruments are in tune, and work well together, it’s a melody, not a cacophony of sounds.”

For the new research, Panda and his colleagues measured what happened when 19 people were asked to do all their eating during a 10-hour window every day for 12 weeks. The participants were allowed to choose their own 10-hour window, and could vary it slightly, say, if they had an early breakfast meeting one day or a late dinner on another.

All the study’s subjects had a condition known as metabolic syndrome. Sometimes called “pre-diabetes,” metabolic syndrome makes a person five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and it doubles their risk of developing cardiovascular disease within five years. The condition is diagnosed when a patient tests positive for three or more of the following conditions: obesity, high blood pressure, problematic cholesterol, impaired metabolic function and excessive waist circumference (an indicator of abdominal fat).