Overweight women who ate a lower-calorie diet and fasted 3 days a week lost more weight and had better cardiometabolic markers than women who only reduced their calorie intake, or only fasted, or did neither in a small, 8-week randomized trial.
"Obese women who followed a diet in which they ate 70% of their required energy intake and fasted intermittently lost the most weight," said lead author Amy T. Hutchison, post-doctoral researcher, Adelaide Medical School, University of Adelaide, Australia, in a statement from her university.
"Other women in the study," she noted, "who either fasted intermittently without reducing their food intake, who reduced their food intake but did not fast, or did not restrict their diet at all, were not as successful in losing weight."
The new findings from the Effects of Periodic Fasting Versus Daily Energy Restriction on Metabolic Health (PREFER) study were published in the January issue of Obesity.
In this cohort of close to 90 middle-aged and older overweight or obese women who were randomized to the four different strategies, the most successful participants lost about 0.5 to 1 kg per week.
"This study is adding to evidence that intermittent fasting, at least in the short term, may provide better outcomes than daily continuous diet restriction for health and potentially for weight loss," said senior author Leonie Heilbronn, PhD, associate professor, University of Adelaide and South Australian Health and Medical Record Institute.
