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Intermittent fasting, reduction in meal frequency… Certain methods for losing weight can be a more accessible solution for those who struggle to follow traditional diets.
- One study shows that meal management strategies, like intermittent fasting, eating less often, or consuming calories earlier in the day, can lead to modest weight loss over 12 weeks.
- Intermittent fasting resulted in an average loss of 1.37 kg over 12 weeks, while reducing meal frequency led to a drop of 1.85 kg. The earlier consumption of calories led to a loss of 1.75 kg.
- The effects on metabolism, although modest, showed reductions in blood sugar and glycated hemoglobin, both indicators of diabetes risk.
Meal management strategies, such as intermittent fasting, reducing the frequency of meals or even consuming calories at the start of the day, could promote modest weight loss. This is according to a study by researchers at Bond University in Australia, who suggest these approaches could provide a simple alternative to traditional diets.
Adapt to the body’s rhythms to manage your weight
With one in eight people affected worldwide, obesity increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers. The fight against obesity often relies on strict diets limiting calorie intake or certain foods, but these methods are difficult to maintain. Researchers are therefore exploring other approaches, such as controlling meal times, which could better adapt to the body’s natural rhythms to facilitate weight management.
The study, published in JAMA Network Openanalyzed 29 clinical trials involving nearly 2,500 participants, 69% of whom were women with an average age of 44 years and a BMI of 33. Strategies included intermittent fasting (practiced in 17 studies), reducing the frequency of meals (eight studies) and calorie distribution early in the day (four studies).
The results show that intermittent fasting led to an average loss of 1.37 kg over 12 weeks, while reducing meal frequency led to a drop of 1.85 kg. The earlier consumption of calories led to a loss of 1.75 kg. The effects on metabolism, although modest, showed reductions in blood sugar and glycated hemoglobin, both indicators of diabetes risk.
A more accessible solution than traditional diets
In their press releasethe researchers, however, highlight important limitations to the study: 76% of the analyzed trials presented a risk of bias and 66% a high bias, mainly due to the difficulty of controlling and verifying the diet declared by the participants. These results should therefore be interpreted with caution and require additional trials, with larger samples and long-term follow-up, to better understand the impact of these strategies on health.
In the meantime, according to them, although the weight loss does not exceed two kilos, these meal management strategies could constitute a more accessible solution for those who struggle to follow traditional diets.
