Fasting for certain periods during the day can help people lose weight, which may lead to additional health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and diabetes risk. It was not known previously whether weight loss through fasting was directly related to these other health benefits.
That connection is now clearer based in part on the work of investigators supported through the NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program hub at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Through a small, rigorously controlled trial, the research team found that eating all meals by midafternoon and fasting the rest of the day can improve blood pressure and insulin sensitivity, even without weight loss. The results are reported in Cell Metabolism.
The investigators tested a type of intermittent fasting that involves eating all meals within a six-hour window before 3 p.m. Eight men with prediabetes followed this schedule for five weeks. They later switched to the typical American meal schedule, where they ate the same number of calories spread over 12 hours.