Intermittent fasting is linked to cardiovascular death

[Anonymous]

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death

I am not sure how legit is this. Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/19/intermittent-fasting-study-heart-risk/

[Anonymous]

It’s a huge study - over 20,000 subjects. Here is the info on the American Heart Association website: https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death

[Anonymous]

Probably because for a lot of people who do it long term, they are anorexic which puts enormous strain on the heart.

[Anonymous]

As someone with an eating disorder, I do wonder what the percentage is of people who do IF correctly vs those who use it to mask an ED. The ED portion can certainly be mess up the data.

[Anonymous]

Yes, much healthier to eat every hour you’re awake.

…seriously, common sense should’ve given journalists pause before reporting on these ludicrous findings. Note that they haven’t actually been published — or even PRESENTED — yet. What’s being reported on is the press release in advance of the conference presentation. What we do know is that the data are self-reported… a notoriously weak form.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, much healthier to eat every hour you’re awake.

…seriously, common sense should’ve given journalists pause before reporting on these ludicrous findings. Note that they haven’t actually been published — or even PRESENTED — yet. What’s being reported on is the press release in advance of the conference presentation. What we do know is that the data are self-reported… a notoriously weak form.

Yes, the ostrich method is a better standard for reporting. /s

[Anonymous]

According to the article, there are no controls for underlying health and differences in the groups with different eating windows. In other words, in a well-controlled prospective study, they have not a clue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, much healthier to eat every hour you’re awake.

…seriously, common sense should’ve given journalists pause before reporting on these ludicrous findings. Note that they haven’t actually been published — or even PRESENTED — yet. What’s being reported on is the press release in advance of the conference presentation. What we do know is that the data are self-reported… a notoriously weak form.

FYI, there is something in between restricted eating and eating every hour.

[Anonymous]

Most nutritional studies aren't worth the paper they're written on (or the space taken in the Cloud). So many confounders. The Stat News story is a good one.

[Anonymous]

Here is the abstract. IF has been promoted as good for improving metabolic health and for being heart healthy. This is a large study that surprisingly shows that it is not heart healthy.

https://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/20343/presentation/379

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, much healthier to eat every hour you’re awake.

…seriously, common sense should’ve given journalists pause before reporting on these ludicrous findings. Note that they haven’t actually been published — or even PRESENTED — yet. What’s being reported on is the press release in advance of the conference presentation. What we do know is that the data are self-reported… a notoriously weak form.

Well yes. Most mammals do eat throughout the day. Snakes may eat once a week but omnivores usually eat frequently rather than occasionally.

[Anonymous]

Key parts of the article:

“Although the study identified an association between an 8-hour eating window and cardiovascular death, this does not mean that time-restricted eating caused cardiovascular death.”

"The study’s limitations included its reliance on self-reported dietary information, which may be affected by participant’s memory or recall and may not accurately assess typical eating patterns."

"Factors that may also play a role in health, outside of daily duration of eating and cause of death, were not included in the analysis."

"Second, it needs to be emphasized that categorization into the different windows of time-restricted eating was determined on the basis of just two days of dietary intake,”

“It will also be critical to see a comparison of demographics and baseline characteristics across the groups that were classified into the different time-restricted eating windows – for example, was the group with the shortest time-restricted eating window unique compared to people who followed other eating schedules, in terms of weight, stress, traditional cardiometabolic risk factors or other factors associated with adverse cardiovascular outcomes? This additional information will help to better understand the potential independent contribution of the short time-restricted eating pattern reported in this interesting and provocative abstract.”

For those unfamiliar with restrospective studies like this, these are HUGE grains of salt.

[Anonymous]

In our household IF is associated with fast food and binge eating. My DH would often not have breakfast or lunch but might grab fast food in the afternoon and then eat a ton of food at dinner time. One thing that would be interested is comparing the actual diets of people on IF to other people. I think being hungry all day is not conducive to eating healthy when you do eat.

[Anonymous]

Correlation is not causation. Many people (myself included) engaged in IF because they need to lose weight. Overweight and obesity are associated with a high rate of cardiac problems and related deaths as well. So.