In recent years, the fitness industry has been taken over by a number of popular diets which are followed by not only common people but also endorsed by big companies and brands as well as promoted by health gurus and celebrities. One of the most prevalent dietary practices is intermittent fasting.
As suggested by its name, intermittent fasting simply refers to avoiding any kind of food and drinks for a specific period of time every day to encourage fat burn and weight loss in the body and maintain health.
There are a number of options available when adding this practice to everyday life. The easiest way of fasting for health and weight maintenance is simply by following sixteen hours diet.
In this diet, a person can only eat at fixed timings and for sixteen hours a day, he or she has to avoid eating any meals. Other options are also available and people can choose specific time intervals of fewer or higher than sixteen hours based on their preferences and lifestyles.
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Intermittent fasting is becoming more and more popular each day with many people claiming it helped them in their weight loss journey. The practice can even be combined with other diets for even more fast and effective outcomes.
Scientifically, there are a number of studies that show following such a routine can help in reducing weight and avoiding weight gain in the future. However, researchers have also brought up several questions regarding its effectiveness at the same time.
For instance, a new clinical trial, whose findings appear in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, shows the practice may not be as beneficial as it may appear or as may people assume it is.
More specifically, the researchers from the University of California San Francisco found that fasting is not more effective than any other dietary practices and usually gives the same outcomes. In addition, they also reported that it may even lead to an unexpected impact on the body which is the loss of muscle mass.
During the clinical trial, the team of researchers looked at participants for a time period of ninety days after which they found that while time-restricted eating did help in losing weight, the results were much different from other diets.
One of the leading investigators in the trial, Ethan Weiss had also followed the practice for years before the research. However, he specifically announced that he will be discontinuing considering that the practice had little metabolic advantages and actually caused the loss of muscle mass.
These findings show that like many of the other popular and ‘miraculous’ diets promoted by people may not be as beneficial and effective as they are stated to be. Many of them need much more scientific evidence and research in order to know more about all of their outcomes.
Therefore, it is better to not follow dietary practices and diets such as intermittent fasting merely by looking at results posted on the internet or due to them being endorsed by celebrities as they can do more harm than good in the future.
