Scientists from Nanfang Hospital and elsewhere found that time-restricted diets offer no benefits toward weight loss.
The research is published in The New England Journal of Medicine and was conducted by Deying Liu et al.
In the study, the team monitored obese volunteers and checked two versions of the same diet and what it showed about the benefits of time restrictions.
Some prior evidence, mostly from animals, has suggested that restricting eating to certain windows of time during the day might help people lose weight.
The idea was that eating only during such periods would coincide with important parts of the circadian rhythm resulting in higher metabolic activity and burning more calories. But other studies have shown no such benefit.
In this research, the team did a year-long study that involved the cooperation of 139 obese volunteers who agreed to go on a reduced-calorie diet for one year.
Some volunteers were also asked to limit their eating to the hours of 8am to 4pm. Women were to eat between 1200 and 1500 kcal per day, and men 1500 to 1800 kcal per day.
All of the volunteers were monitored throughout the study to measure body weight and other weight loss attributes such as a decreasing waistline.
The team found that while the volunteers in the eating window did lose more weight on average than the other group, it was not statistically meaningful.
The researchers also found that restricting eating to a time window did not make any difference in weight loss attributes such as smaller waistlines.
These findings suggest that time-restricted diets provide no benefit for curbing obesity.
Sign up for our newsletter for more information about this topic.
If you care about weight management, please read studies about berry that could help prevent diabetes, obesity, cancer, and ginger may help reduce obesity and fatty liver disease.
For more information about wellness, please see recent studies that high-fiber diet may reduce your risk of dementia, and results showing how to reduce Parkinson’s symptoms with diet and supplements.
Copyright © 2022 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
