A new study suggests that restricting eating to less than eight hours a day, a type of intermittent fasting, may increase the risk of premature death from heart disease in the long term.

An analysis of data from more than 20,000 adults found that participants who consumed all of their food within 8 hours a day had significantly lower cardiovascular It has been found that people are almost twice as likely to die from the disease over several years. According to a report presented Monday, March 18, at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago.

Time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, is becoming increasingly popular, and there is growing evidence from human and animal studies linking the eating pattern to improved health outcomes. Specifically, studies have found that intermittent fasting is associated with weight loss and improved blood sugar regulation, along with lower blood pressure, cholesterol, resting heart rate, and inflammation.

There are several different types of intermittent fasting, and 16:8 (fasting for 16 hours and eating over 8 hours) is one of the most popular. Another type is if he is 5:2, and two days a week he takes in only 500 calories, and on the other days he follows a normal diet.

So what does this new research mean for people who practice intermittent fasting or want to try it? Here’s what you need to know.

What did the research find?

To take a closer look at the long-term health effects of time-restricted eating, researchers turned to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and correlated it with information from the National Death Index.

Researchers focused on NHANES participants who were at least 20 years old at enrollment. Between 2003 and 2018, 20,078 men and women completed two surveys asking what kind of food they ate and when in the past 24 hours. They were followed for a median of 8 years. Overall, 2,797 people died during the study period, 840 from heart disease and 643 from cancer.

Researchers analyzed the data and found that people who ate their entire meal within eight hours a day were 91% more likely to die from heart disease than those who ate out for more than 12 to 16 hours. found.

The discovery, which has not been peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal, was a surprise to the researchers.

“We expected that long-term introduction of 8-hour food restriction would lead to a reduced risk of cardiovascular and even all-cause mortality, as short-term randomized controlled trials typically range from 1 month to 1 year. “Time-restricted eating reduces weight and improves cardiometabolic health,” said the study’s lead author, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Dr. Victor Wenze Zhong, professor and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, said today. Please email us at com.

He said a possible explanation for this finding is that the intermittent fasting group had less lean muscle mass than other groups, and previous studies have linked lower lean muscle mass to a higher risk of cardiovascular death. It is said that this means that

However, Zhong emphasizes that “it is premature to make specific recommendations for time-restricted eating based solely on our study.”

In fact, “Based on what we know so far, intermittent fasting for short periods of time, such as 3 or 6 months, can be effective in reducing weight and improving cardiometabolic health.” “It’s possible,” he says.

So, in light of the new research, he simply recommends caution for people who have been doing 16:8 intermittent fasting for years.

What do the experts say?

Natalie Rizzo, registered dietitian and nutrition editor at TODAY.com, says the results seem consistent with the effects of intermittent fasting on appetite.

“Intermittent fasting is based on eating within a set period of time, so there are no restrictions on the types of foods you can eat,” Rizzo explains. “Restricting eating to 8 hours a day can cause extreme hunger, which can lead to overeating and unhealthy food choices. Additionally, restricting eating to 16 hours a day can increase cravings and lead to unhealthy food choices. It may lead to better choices.”

Dr. Mark Mattson, a leading expert on intermittent fasting and an adjunct professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says there are “a number of problems” with this study.

First, the findings are based on just two days of dietary recall, Mattson, author of “The Intermittent Fasting Revolution: The Science of Optimizing Health and Enhancing Performance,” told TODAY.com. Furthermore, the researchers did not seem to take into account the number of calories the participants consumed. People who ate for only eight hours may have been consuming foods that were high in calories and low in nutritional value.

Dr. Deepak Bhatt, director of Mount Sinai Faster Heart Hospital in New York City, agrees: “If you binge eat and drink during that eight-hour period, it’s not good for your cardiovascular system.”

But most importantly, the study doesn’t prove that the increased risk of death is due to people cramming all their meals within eight hours, Mattson explains. The 8-hour fasting group may have had something in common beyond their eating patterns.

Most clinical trials designed to investigate the effects of dietary restriction last only a few months to a year, but “changes in health indicators (e.g., insulin resistance, abdominal fat, blood lipids (fat) profile) is continually changing, and in the right direction,” Mattsson said.

Additionally, the new study’s data was collected at a time when many people were not intentionally restricting their diets, said Sean, a preventive cardiologist and director of fitness-centered cardiology at the Center for Cardiovascular Prevention.・Dr. P. Heffron says: New York University Langone Heart Disease. So we don’t know why they ate all the food within eight hours, Heffron told TODAY.com.

“There is nothing here to suggest that I am making any kind of clinical recommendation,” he says.

The new results are “astonishing,” Butt added. But the study’s biggest problem is that it relies on replicating the diet, “which is incomplete,” he says. … Many people don’t remember what they ate for breakfast. This type of research requires detailed dietary information collected in real time. ”