Intermittent fasting can be dangerous, experts say

Although the Internet is full of dubious welfare trends, it is often cited as scientific evidence: intermittent fasting, where participants limit their consumption to certain times of the day or to certain days of the week. Some scientific evidence shows that intermittent fasting has some benefits for heart health and neurogenesis. A recent study from Mount Sinai School of Medicine published in Cell found that intermittent fasting can reduce acute inflammation and help chronic inflammatory conditions. But nutritionists and eating disorder specialists tell Bustle that some aspects of intermittent fasting can be dangerous because they can hurt people's relationships with food.

According to experts, one of the most worrying problems of intermittent fasting is that it can disconnect your body from its natural feelings of hunger and satiety. "Every day, we are disconnected from our body only through a specific diet," says Alissa Rumsey, New York-based dietitian and founder of Alissa Rumsey Nutrition and Wellness. "This causes people to ignore the signals of hunger, which means that once they are allowed to eat, they starve and that it can be difficult to stop eat." The body has its own internal clock moderated by many external factors, including sunlight and sleep, which determines when we feel hungry.

Experts worry about the impact of restrictive meal times on our internal clocks and, by extension, on other aspects of health. "Limiting your diet to certain hours of the day ignores the needs of your body, leaves you malnourished and could tip the pendulum to the utmost extreme once you have permission to eat," says Emily Bonnesle, Nutrition Therapist, Bustle. "This type of deregulated, random and chaotic diet has a negative impact on hormonal balance, immunity, digestion and sleep.Although intermittent fasting may seem healthy, it has the real potential to to make you sick. "

Limiting eating habits so closely can also lead to a cycle of bulimia and fasting, experts say. "Intermittent fasting can interfere with your relationship with food by immersing you in a cycle of excessive consumption restriction," says Christy Harrison, MDP, RD, dietitian and disordered eating expert. "Research conducted for decades has shown that fasting and other forms of dietary restriction increase the risk of excessive consumption of alcohol in humans, as our bodies are endowed with powerful biological mechanisms that are harmful to humans. activate when they feel threatened with starvation … too low, these mechanisms are triggered. " People who fast, says Harrison, may end up feeling unbalanced about food.

Jumping meals also has biological consequences. Rumsey tells Bustle that drastically reducing your food intake leads to an increase in your cortisol levels, which triggers fat storage and muscle breakdown. (Cortisol is "the stress hormone.") In addition, Harrison also points out that "these behaviors can lead to complete anorexia, which affects people of all sizes." Physically or mentally, the body is not built to withstand starvation patterns.

The supposed health benefits of intermittent fasting do not correspond to what science says either. "Intermittent fasting is a sensationalist version of what we know to be true about fasting overnight," Fonnesbeck told Bustle. "Having a break from eating for eight to twelve hours improves the metabolic profile (blood sugar and blood lipid levels.) However, you do not need to skip a meal or snack to draw earnings." (A break from eating for eight to twelve hours is more or less a break from eating while sleeping, and that's all.) The problem, she says, is that without constant or adequate nutrition, this metabolic process can "turn around." Not eating overnight makes sense; Intermittent fasting, in general, may not be.

The major problem with intermittent fasting is that people often approach it not as a way to obtain neurological benefits, improve heart health or reduce inflammation, but as a quick way to lose weight. "The main reason my clients are interested in using intermittent fasting is weight loss," says Tessa Nguyen RD LDN, licensed chef and dietician. "From my experience, intermittent fasting has only hurt my clients' relationships with food."

And whether or not intermittent fasting leads to weight loss, chances are it's a temporary change. "We have more than 60 years of evidence showing that in five years, nearly 98% of people who have lost weight end up recovering everything, and probably more than what they've lost," he said. Harrison. "This makes the diet a recipe for weight cycling – yo-yo loss and recovery cycles."

The weight cycle can increase the risk of heart disease, cancer and other conditions. "Some evidence suggests that the full risk of excess mortality for some diseases in high-weight individuals may be explained by the weight cycle only," Harrison says – in other words, people may have health problems not because of their weight, but because of their dieting.

All intermittent fasting shows that there may be some medical benefits, but the risks may outweigh the benefits. "When the ultimate goal is to lose weight, intermittent fasting becomes a way to become obsessed with restricting your food choices and consumption," says Nguyen. "Instead of listening to your body's signals and eating when you're naturally hungry, your life begins to focus on what you can and can not eat." According to the experts, it is more useful to move towards an intuitive diet, in which you try to react to the natural signals of your body in terms of nutrition, to get enough sleep, to reduce stress and to exercise to feel better

For experts in nutrition and health, intermittent fasting is like an old story of new clothing: promoting a so-called "healthy" ideal that shames women. "Intermittent fasting is a socially acceptable way of engaging in restrictive and disorderly eating," Harrison said. "It's disguised as health-beneficial behavior, which can mean that people who are really suffering from disordered flies are often praised for the behaviors that harm them." And

If you or any of your acquaintances have a eating disorder and need help, call the National Eating Disorders Association's helpline at 1-800-931-2237, e-mail: text 741741 or chat online with a volunteer helpline. right here.