Intermittent fasting for weight loss: Study suggests the diet can become a part of healthy lifestyle

New Delhi: Intermittent fasting is a popular weight-loss technique or diet followed by people to lose weight and get in shape. Instead of being extremely restrictive with food, the intermittent fasting method focuses on time-restricted eating. It is followed in one of the two ways – the 16:8 diet where one eats in a window of 6-8 hours in a day, followed by 16 hours of fasting, or the 5:2 diet, where they restrict their diet to one meal a day, for two days in a week. 

If you plan on using the intermittent fasting method to lose weight or are using it already, you must know certain effects of the diet, as found by researchers. According to a recent report, a recent study has found the scientific and clinical applications of the intermittent fasting method in a way that may help physicians guide their patients to try the fitness method. 

The findings were published as a review article in the New England Journal of Medicine. The findings suggest that intermittent fasting, can, in fact, become a part of a healthy lifestyle. 

Previous studies have found that the time between having meals and fasting supports cellular health, which may happen due to a traditional approach of metabolic switching. A metabolic switch occurs when the cells exhaust the energy received from the food eaten, and then start to convert fat into energy, leading to weight loss. Previous studies have also found that such a diet can increase resistance to stress, manage blood sugar levels better, and also suppress inflammation. 

In the review article, researchers noted that four studies conducted in both animals and humans found that intermittent fasting could decrease high blood pressure, blood lipid levels, and resting heart rates. 

Researchers said that some evidence of intermittent fasting reducing risk factors like obesity and diabetes may have also been found. 

Since people can get irritable due to hunger during the initial days of intermittent fasting, and may even quit the diet, physicians must know the science behind the diet, so that they can help their patients.