Periodic fasting is extremely popular, but does it work?



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For some years now, Hollywood stars, Silicon Valley technicians and other trendy people have been eating a diet: Periodic fasting or alternating food with normal food. In the Netherlands, the spartan diet is becoming more and more popular, but what about science?

Fast Fast
Scientific writer Maarten Keulemans followed the diet, where you are part-time, in English, also called intermittent fasting. Keulemans ate almost nothing on Mondays and Tuesdays so he could eat whatever he wanted in the rest of the week. The result? He dropped 15 kilos in three quarters of a year. Moreover, he managed not to be too hungry on days of fasting, while he only took coffee with milk and a little yoghurt for dinner. The editor was even satisfied and so was enthusiastic at first.

He also discovered all kinds of studies, particularly in mice, which indicated many health benefits, such as reduced risk of cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, better blood values ​​and low cholesterol. Losing weight would also be faster than with a normal diet.

This is not a panacea.
But he then pursues his research and comes to a sobering conclusion. A meta-analysis, or synthesis study, of six previous studies concludes: "The effect of interrupted diets in relation to the continuous restriction of energy shows no significant difference in terms of weight loss." In other words: it does not matter whether you follow a regular diet or fasting.

But why it works again, wonders Keulemans. The Scottish Professor of Food Science Alex Johnstone has a simple explanation: "The concept of interrupted fasting is simple.This makes the task easier, not to mention the complicated daily calories."

Studies on mice
You should not expect too much from research findings on mice, says Sander Kersten, professor of molecular food science at Wageningen. "I think that the picture of these animal studies is something that is still somewhat covered.These are mice, is not it?" humans? "In addition, he claims that the experiments were less successful, but that nothing has been written about it.

Ellen Blaak, Professor of Human Biology, gives a sobering comment: "We will have to accept that we must really adapt our lifestyle to lose weight in a sustainable way, so eat less, eat healthier and do more. of exercise. "She advises mainly to eat food. Read the label, drink less sugary drinks, she recommends.

Sports
Finally, Keulemans writes that more sports do not have much sense in themselves. Several studies have shown that we would eat more to reward ourselves or because we were more hungry. We also do less physical exercise because we think we have already played sports. Moreover, we invariably estimate that the number of calories burned is too high.

This is equivalent to the fact that you have to eat less structurally. Very boring, actually.

Source: De Volkskrant
Photo: EyeEm / HH

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