Intermittent Fasting Linked To Higher Risk of Cardiovascular Death, Research Suggests (nbcnews.com) 107
Several readers shared the following report: Intermittent fasting, a diet pattern that involves alternating between periods of fasting and eating, can lower blood pressure and help some people lose weight, past research has indicated. But an analysis presented Monday at the American Heart Association's scientific sessions in Chicago challenges the notion that intermittent fasting is good for heart health. Instead, researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China found that people who restricted food consumption to less than eight hours per day had a 91% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease over a median period of eight years, relative to people who ate across 12 to 16 hours.
It's some of the first research investigating the association between time-restricted eating (a type of intermittent fasting) and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The analysis -- which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal -- is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 2003 and 2018. The researchers analyzed responses from around 20,000 adults who recorded what they ate for at least two days, then looked at who had died from cardiovascular disease after a median follow-up period of eight years. However, Victor Wenze Zhong, a co-author of the analysis, said it's too early to make specific recommendations about intermittent fasting based on his research alone.
It's some of the first research investigating the association between time-restricted eating (a type of intermittent fasting) and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. The analysis -- which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal -- is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 2003 and 2018. The researchers analyzed responses from around 20,000 adults who recorded what they ate for at least two days, then looked at who had died from cardiovascular disease after a median follow-up period of eight years. However, Victor Wenze Zhong, a co-author of the analysis, said it's too early to make specific recommendations about intermittent fasting based on his research alone.
It's too early... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the fine summary: "it's too early to make specific recommendations about intermittent fasting based on his research alone."
Thanks for the nothingburger, slashdot!
Re:It's too early... (Score:5, Insightful)
The description also says this is not peer-reviewed.
So my question is have they ruled out confounding variables?
For example.. Perhaps people in a certain already poor health condition might be more likely to engage in intermittent fasting.
Or alternatively: Healthy people who don't need to lose weight that want to lose weight anyways do so to the detriment of their health, thus increasing risks.
Research based on surveys like this should be peer-reviewed, and discuss why X can be conluded.
Re:It's too early... (Score:4, Informative)
The description also says this is not peer-reviewed.
So my question is have they ruled out confounding variables?
For example.. Perhaps people in a certain already poor health condition might be more likely to engage in intermittent fasting.
Or alternatively: Healthy people who don't need to lose weight that want to lose weight anyways do so to the detriment of their health, thus increasing risks.
Research based on surveys like this should be peer-reviewed, and discuss why X can be conluded.
Quoting TFA: " The researchers analyzed responses from around 20,000 adults who recorded what they ate for at least two days, then looked at who had died from cardiovascular disease after a median follow-up period of eight years."
Emphasis mine. I mean, shit, you can't make that up. No further comment needed.
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> two days
Did McDonald's sponsor this study?
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> two days
Did McDonald's sponsor this study?
The real question is if this study will spark a McFlurry of research.
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That's a punch straight to my McRibs.
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There are countless problems with this study. How about: People who are asked to self-report what they eat to strangers might be more likely to lie about what they eat to seem more healthy. In which case, any correlation with outcomes is meaningless.
Re:It's too early... (Score:5, Insightful)
These people have PhDs. Do you seriously think they've never considered this?
"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die. It's true, but it's basic shit that even a small child knows. But people on Slashdot repeat it endlessly any time any sort of science at all comes up, in any context.
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"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die.
Indeed it does. :-P
"Correlation does not mean causation" - that one is alive and well.
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"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die.
Indeed it does. :-P
"Correlation does not mean causation" - that one is alive and well.
Actually, it isn't that one, either.
The precise statement you are looking for is: Correlation does not imply causation.
The word "imply" is important. Also, the statement does not need to die. Rather, it needs to be better understood, as demonstrated in this thread.
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That's the quip, yes. The proper statement is something like:
Correlation implies causation, but not the specific causal relationship.
It's much less catchy unfortunately.
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Correlation does NOT imply causation AT ALL.
Two things can be correlated to a T and have absolutely no relationship to each other whatsoever.
Observational studies are weak evidence but still usefull.
They are useful to identify areas that might require more research, but not to determine causation, make policy or to determine if a drug is safe, effective or harmful.
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Causation proves correlation, correlation implies (suggests) causation, correlation does not prove causation, lack of correlation proves lack of causation (to within measurement tolerance).
The catch is that in logic "imply" usually means "is logically equivalent to", so whether correlation implies causation depends on whether you're using the common or logician meaning of imply.
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I guess we go in order.
No. As I relied to the other guy, correlation (co-relation) is defined as a relationship between quantities. The idea that relationships between quantities are causal is very deeply set in the philosophy science, including physics. You are probably conflating correlation with a statistical test for
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No, they can't.
You are probably thinking of nonsense like "the position of Saturn in it's orbit is correlated with women's skirt hem lengths." You will note that people talking about apparent "spurious correlations" like that never give a p-value. The p-value is a measure of the strength of the evidence that the correlation actually exists.
A correlation is defined as a relationship between two quantities. "Co-re
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Both statements are wrong in evaluating the logical functions
"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die.
Causation doesn't equal correlation is True. It is false that Causation equal correlation.
The proposition that Causation equal correlation could ONLY be true "X causes Y" and "X correlates with Y" were mathematically Identical, which they are not.
You can only write IF "X causes Y" is True, Then therefore: X correlates with Y.
However, correlation is commutative, and causation is Not.
X co
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It's true, and it's basic and I too tire of it being toddled out as thoughtless refutation of any observational study. However, it's not so basic that even a small child knows, and reporters get it wrong all the time.
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But people on Slashdot repeat it endlessly any time
In Soviet Russia, correlation causes YOU!
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But people on Slashdot repeat it endlessly any time
In Soviet Russia, correlation causes YOU!
In US of A, copulation causes you.
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it's always better to copulate than never.
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"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die. It's true, but it's basic shit that even a small child knows
It's basic shit that people get wrong All the time. Especially journalists.
And also that researchers often try to handwave away or workaround in some flawwed way so that they can get something published, And as we already mentioned.. the Article in question has not been peer-reviewed. That also means it has not been adequately vetted by experts in the field against such defects.
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"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die. It's true, but it's basic shit that even a small child knows
It's basic shit that people get wrong All the time. Especially journalists.
IMO it's not basic unless and until you can tell me what does imply causation. Hint: it's not Bayes' Theorem, since that implies a result but says nothing about causation. It also has no bearing on past events that need to be explained.
But still, correlation can't be taken to mean causation has been observed. Positive covid tests don't cause covid, babies bumping their heads don't cause crying babies, etc. Oh wait.
(Snark aside, I would genuinely appreciate any insight anyone can share about what is the curr
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In order to really conclude that intermittent fasting is dangerous, you'd need to take a random sample of people and assign one group to do intermittent fasting (with appropriate monitoring to show they actually did it) and another group to act as a control. If you are relying on people self-selecting into intermittent fasting, it's going to be impossible to remove the possibility of confounding variables.
Re:It's too early... (Score:4, Funny)
"These people have PhDs. Do you seriously think they've never considered this?"
As someone with a PhD, I am now backing quietly out of the room hoping no one notices me.
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These people have PhDs. Do you seriously think they've never considered this?
The same people saying "it's too early to make specific recommendations about intermittent fasting based on his research alone."
The remark of GP is wholly justified because TFS says this: 'But an analysis presented Monday at the American Heart Association's scientific sessions in Chicago challenges the notion that intermittent fasting is good for heart health. Instead, [...]"
The journalists here (in search of clicks) are not listening to the people with the PhDs. The people with the PhDs are not claiming ca
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Journalists often get things badly wrong. That's not the case with that sentence though. You're the one misinterpreting it. The *possibility* that intermitted fasting can cause heart attacks indeed challenges the notion that it's good for your heart.
The sentence did not say "intermittent fasting is bad for you."
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I was precise and said "very strongly [implied]". That is enough for most of the general public to misinterpret it.
Ask yourself this: How many people reading the wording from the journalists, without also reading a comment about correlation vs. causation, will interpret and remember it as "intermittent fasting causes heart attacks"?
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"Causation doesn't equal correlation" needs to die. It's true, but it's basic shit that even a small child knows. But people on Slashdot repeat it endlessly any time any sort of science at all comes up, in any context.
And most of the people on Slashdot, and elsewhere, who parrot it do not, in fact, understand it. In their minds, it only applies when they disagree with something. If a non-study tells them what they want to hear, they parrot "follow the science" without knowing what science is.
In short, I disagree. It's not something even a small child knows. It's certainly not something most adults know.
Re: It's too early... (Score:2)
No, they did consider it, and they Said not to make recommendations based on this research. IOW, they KNOW it's worthless. But some choad approved it for the front page anyway...
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Yes, but using that is a convenient excuse to pick and choose which science to "believe" based on your personal predispositions.
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It needs to get repeated because people constantly draw "scientific" results from correlations that their data mining doesn't support.
The reality is that successful researchers that get popular attention are the ones who produce interesting results. So its not that they don't know it, its that they ignore it and they have no interest in finding weaknesses with their interesting result.
The folks that created and promoted eugenics "science" all had PHD's and a lot of them taught at Harvard and Yale. The lous
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Re:It's too early... (Score:4, Interesting)
The description also says this is not peer-reviewed.
So my question is have they ruled out confounding variables?
For example.. Perhaps people in a certain already poor health condition might be more likely to engage in intermittent fasting.
Or alternatively: Healthy people who don't need to lose weight that want to lose weight anyways do so to the detriment of their health, thus increasing risks.
Research based on surveys like this should be peer-reviewed, and discuss why X can be conluded.
I agree the question of confounding variables is important, though at this point we have no indication that they neglected them. In fact, since the study is neither reviewed, nor even seems to be available in pre-print, it's hard to say anything other than "this may be interesting once it's published".
Personally, I think people are jumping on the selection bias wagon a little too hard at this point. Intermittent fasting seems to be more a trend among the slightly overweight looking for a 6-pack rather than the obese at serious health risks. Certainly we didn't evolve with 3 meals a day involving a consistent volume of calories, but I don't think we evolved with a significant daily time restriction either.
It reminds me of polyphasic sleep [wikipedia.org], it's fine over a short period, but I'd be extremely reluctant to make a long term change like that without really good evidence.
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We absolutely did evolve with significant restrictions.
Humans evolved eating meat as hunter gatherers. Diet consistently was made of big game meats.
Some forraging for berries and fruits.
If you eat allot of meat, proteins and animal fats, you will be fully satiated and can go for a day or more without eating or being hungry.
Meals where not always constant. People ate allot after a kill and tried to preserve as much as possible to last. But might go days or weeks without eating anything of substance.
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We absolutely did evolve with significant restrictions.
Humans evolved eating meat as hunter gatherers. Diet consistently was made of big game meats.
Some forraging for berries and fruits.
If you eat allot of meat, proteins and animal fats, you will be fully satiated and can go for a day or more without eating or being hungry.
Meals where not always constant. People ate allot after a kill and tried to preserve as much as possible to last. But might go days or weeks without eating anything of substance.
I agree mostly meat, but practices are all over the places [nih.gov].
Either way, when they weren't eating big chunks of meat it seems more likely they might be snacking on berries during the day, they certainly wouldn't be having one big meal every day. I don't see why intermittent fasting would be closer to evolutionary dietary practises than our regular 3 meal pattern.
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Only ar-risk people fast (Score:2)
People who want to lose weight or gain health are the ones interested in new things. Unless it is controlled for, you run the risk of "aspirin cause headaches" because there is a correlation betwixt taking aspirin and having a headache.
Of course the study could account for this; slashdot posters are not correlated with the reading of articles, after all...
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The description also says this is not peer-reviewed.
So my question is have they ruled out confounding variables?
For example.. Perhaps people in a certain already poor health condition might be more likely to engage in intermittent fasting.
The evidence that fasting helps - in any way - is even more tenuous than that for anti-oxidants being beneficial. Anti-oxidants being chugged by healthy people because "magic". Then later figuring out that overdosing anti-oxidants for no good reason was strongly correlated with *increased* mortality...
Yet we still see everyone and their in-bred cousin chugging vitamin A/E, beta-carotene and selenium because "magic"
We belong dead
My wife does intermittent fasting all the time. (Score:2, Funny)
There is likely self selection going on (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people who practice Intermittent Fasting are or were obese so their personal risk was likely significantly higher than
average to begin with but at the same time if they lost significant weight, it likely also likely lowered their personal risk of heart disease.
To be accurate, you would need to look at similar cohorts of people to see if IF raises or lowers their personal risk compared to other
interventions.
Re:There is likely self selection going on (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the actual study, which I don't think anyone has read based on the comments, including OP. The actual study shows that it is only a short-term risk factor and "intermittent fasting decreased 10-year chronic disease risk".
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
Damned if you do, Damned if you don't (Score:4, Insightful)
"The All-Father wove the skein of your life a long time ago. Go and hide in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one instant longer. Your fate is fixed. Fear profits a man nothing. " - Herger the Joyous, The Thirteenth Warrior
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"Quit smoking, you'll live longer, your fate is not fixed" -- me, Slashdot
Am I the only one? (Score:5, Funny)
I was very worried for a second as I misread the headline as: Intermittent farting linked to higher risk of cardiovascular death
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Clearly (Score:1)
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just like the red meat causes diabetes and people should be eating 10% sugar in the diet and kids should be eating fruit loops not eggs.
Weird. I've never ever heard a single one of these and I've heard some pretty obviously wrong stuff about diets. Did you just make these up right now?
Low calories result in self decomposing (Score:2)
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Fasting with only water can heal.
Of course proper nutrition is crucial to being healthy.
Fasting long enough leats to autophagy which is crucial to healing.
Any animal that is wounded will stop eating for a while or at best reduce sustenance until healed and only consumme water.
I water-fast every year (Score:2)
between 7 and 10 days every year. It has many advantages, but it's really hard on the heart.
I do that because I'm in good health and reasonably sporty. But as I get older, I feel it's getting too much and I'm not sure I'll go much longer past the ketogenesis switchover - around day 4 - because that's where the main health interest is, and at my age, I reckon it's getting to be enough.
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"It has many advantages, but it's really hard on the heart."
I'm sure when you keel over in the street from a massive heart attack you can take comfort knowing the rest of your body is 100% on point.
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Driving down the wrong side of the street may get you to work faster, but also leads to fatal head on collisions. But other than that, it can work!
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I do that because I'm in good health and reasonably sporty.
So, low body fat? Severe fasting might not be a good idea. Because when your body starts to run out of fat stores, it goes to work on your muscles. Your heart is a muscle. And a relatively important one, from what I've been told.
Fatsos might not be in as much risk. On the other hand, the metabolism that made them fat might tell the body to go ahead and start munching on the heart to save that precious spare tire it worked on for so long to build.
Intentional vs unintentional (Score:5, Informative)
The researchers analyzed responses from around 20,000 adults who recorded what they ate for at least two days, then looked at who had died from cardiovascular disease after a median follow-up period of eight years.
I don't see a link to the study in the article, but if there was no effort made to distinguish between those who were intentionally intermittent fasting and those who may have just been eating rarely due to (detected or undetected) disease that doesn't seem very representative.
self-herding cats (Score:2)
Ramadan, man! (Score:2)
The Number 1 questions is... (Score:2)
...who funded the study? Novo Nordisk, makers of Ozempic? Does anybody believe it when they are told some study concluded something? I don't. None of them. Too many studies have been retracted or a mired in murky origins. The first thing I want to know, and single most telling piece of information when assessing the results of any study is who paid for it.
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Here is the actual study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
I found this part interesting: "Intermittent fasting increased 1-year IMRS mortality risk, but decreased 10-year chronic disease risk (PCRE and ICHRON)"
Here is the funding: (Score:2)
Funding
This research was funded by two grants from the Intermountain Research and Medical Foundation: grant number 759 (PI: BDH) and a supplemental unnumbered grant provided through the philanthropy of the Dell Loy Hansen Heart Foundation (PI: BDH). The funding source had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.
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Thanks. Seems to me your observation should have been the headline.
Obvious (Score:2)
This seems obvious. If intermittent fasting is supposed to emulate what happens "in the wild" to pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer tribes, then why would you expect to live longer? Life back then was nasty, brutish, and short. The only reason this might be surprising to anyone is because of the naturalistic fallacy.
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Hmm...I dunno, I'm still trying to find that "essential" carb that humans require....haven't found it yet.
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Going without carbs and eating lots of animal protein and fat is the last diet anyone "cycles" through.
Its the end game of diets that turns into a way of life.
Carbs are 100% unecessary as are vegetables.
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But not everybody is like you. Most aren’t. Either they’re less active, or they’re just plain older, or their biology is set on “conserve-mode” for a variety of reasons.
For most people, your advice would balloon them out li
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I currently have 6 blown disks in my back, arthritis, a seizure disorder, a hormone regulation disorder, I'm blind in one eye, my other eye is failing (that's an entire post on its own). I have bad knees, bad ankles, chronic pain, Fibro, and that's just the simple stuff. I'm 36 and started getting active ~5 years ago. Before I took working out serious, I was ~136 kg (ca. 300 lb), on 7 different medications, incl
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The constant blood sugar spikes aren't good for all people. I did a 18/6, and then a 23/1 for a while and I lost weight and wasn't hungry.
Your body uses fat to store excess calories, so it's not a bad thing for your body to be burning it. Yes, it is true that people do lose some muscle while following a calorie restricted diet, but exercising eliminates most of those issues.
Carbs aren't bad but they convert directly to sugars so your body tries to burn that first. And once your body's bloodsugars level drop
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Body builders and strength athletes do "cuts" all the time as a normal part of their diet and training. The needs of an extremely active person are also very different from the needs the average population.
But yes, not eating garbage helps. But to say you need to constantly be eating is just wrong. When I was growing up I regularly never ate breakfast, but now-a-days people act like you'll die of starvation if you don't eat something every three hours.
As for working out, it's a terrible way to lose weight.
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I need an extra 6 hours per day please.
Like clockwork (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't going to throw out nearly a century of diet propaganda that revolves around eating more (decades of lowfat diet propaganda that results in overstimulation of insulin, insulin resistance, and runaway hunger due to the above), eating more often (i.e. deification of breakfast, and now snacking, both of them usually empty carbs, highly processed, or both), and eating more profitable and addictive foods (sugar and cheap processed carbs).
The worst thing that could upset the gravy train is if you realized you could change your body setpoint with relatively simple eating pattern changes. That benefits literally nobody (except you).
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Amen
If I had mod points +1
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The worst thing that could upset the gravy train is if you realized you could change your body setpoint with relatively simple eating pattern changes. That benefits literally nobody (except you).
You can change it. I was diabetic (type 2) and had to inject myself with insulin and take oral medication. My blood sugar level was off the charts. I was literally escorted down to the emergency room by a doctor who was paler than his lab coat and he was Middle Eastern.
4 months later, I no longer had to inject myself with insulin or take medications and my A1C was normal. (really 3 months, but 4 months was confirmed)
(I drank water, at baked chicken and eggs. NOTHING ELSE. The first week (10 days?) was utter
Another one [sigh] (Score:2)
A causation-correlation study generating a breathless headline.. PEOPLE OR GONNA DIE!!!
What's the cause? What's the mechanism? At what level of biology was this studied, at the level of systems, organs, cellular? oooooooh, it was studied at the level of numbers on a spreadsheet... ok....
Doing a statistical study like this is fine... to find a place where real science should be used to find real answers which then themselves can be used to write headlines and tell people to alter their behaviors. Just doing
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This *is* real science. It's just not by itself a sufficient basis for making any kind of evidence-based decision. Nor *could it possibly be*.
I had a friend in collge who participated in a nutrition randomized control trial . For months he had to carry around a gym bag; not only did everything he eat and drink come out of that bag, all his urine and feces went into containers in that bag so they could be weighed and analyzed to ensure he was complying with the research protocol. If he snuck a candy bar or
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Bullshit. This is science, except for the shouting part, which nobody involved is doing.
Science is not a fait accompli wrapped up in a nice package and presented to the public as a pure crystal of Truth. The point of studies like this is to find good starting points, from which you can apply more and more specific techniques to learn more. Those specific techniques tend to be both expensive and ethically consequential, so you don't want to just go ahead blindly.
It's also very important that work at every st
Debunking from statnews (Score:2)
Specifically, a study found that caloric restriction, also known as intermittent fasting, has a 91% risk of death due to cardiovascular disease. Except scientific research doesn’t say that — and not only should you not be worried about this study, you shouldn’t be wasting brain glucose thinking bout it. [statnews.com]
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you shouldnâ(TM)t be wasting brain glucose thinking bout it.
I do all my worrying off the fat in my ass.
Time to start! (Score:1)
Bogus (Score:2)
This was a study in China, and everybody knows there aren't any overweight people outside of the U.S.
correlation, not causation (Score:2)
This is a perfect example of correlation is not the same as causation. Consider:
Who does intermittent fasting? People who are trying to lose weight.
Who is trying to lose weight? People who are overweight.
It is pretty well established that overweight people have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
So, it is perfectly reasonable that overweight people both do intermittent fasting and have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease.
They also acknowledge they do not control the quality of food they eat, and th
6 months (Score:1)
But coke's OK still? (Score:2)
I don't really eat much on my voracious coke habit. Didn't realize dieting this way might be harmful to my heart. Huh.
causative vs associative science (Score:1)
The old causative vs associative science strikes again, with out knowing the details, I am willing to bet the people using intermittent fasting are at high risk of cardiovascular disease which is why they are trying to reduce their weight. So to me it is no surprise that when you look at a group of people who are predominantly over weight, you will find a high incidence of cardiovascular problems. Meaning the cardiovascular problems are not caused by intermittent fasting, but were a result
of the fac
While I could be mistaken, my guess is bad data. (Score:2)
Happy Ramadan! (Score:2)