7 replies to this topic

[Cloomis]

After a decade of 5:2 fasting, research for my latest post broke me.

I’ve examined the latest research on fasting, and here’s what I found:

• Meal Skipping Risks: Skipping meals, especially dinner, can increase the risk of premature death by up to 16%. Eating only one meal a day (OMAD) raises this risk by 30%.

• Compressed Eating Windows: Eating meals less than 4.5 hours apart increases mortality risk by 17%, challenging the idea that a narrower eating window is always beneficial.

• Fasting vs. Calorie Restriction: Fasting doesn't offer more advantages than traditional calorie restriction. Its main benefit is calorie control, which can be achieved through other methods.

Explore these findings and more in the full blog post: https://www.unaging....asting-fallacy/

[Furniture]

How about longer term water fasting? Say 2-5 days of total fasting.

[Cloomis]

Water fasting, as in only drinking water, or not even drinking water?

 

In either case, there could be some benefits to occasional fasting, but as a regular practice, I think the muscle loss and the subsequent feasting would likely offset those benefits.

[pamojja]

My first thought is: who on earth is eating only 1 meal per day? The only one I can recall is Patrick from https://www.k-vitami...-view-all&id=18. But then he has been on the brink of death 2 decades ago, and in reality it might just have saved his life until now.

 

Same with intermittent fasting, in most cases started only with chronic diseases, where the outcome with standard of care is even worse than 17% increased mortality. I, for example, started it due to a walking disability from PAD, along with other life-style changes, and experienced a remission of this disability. With a 5-year mortality risk of 30%, 17 years ago.

 

A total of 24,011 adults (aged ≥40 years) who participated in the

Results

During 185,398 person-years of follow-up period, 4,175 deaths occurred, including 878 cardiovascular deaths. Most participants ate three meals per day.

 

Of the 24 thousand adults, most ate 3 meals a day. How many ate only 2 or 1 meal per day, but most importantly, due to which co-morbid chronic conditions?

Edited by pamojja, 27 February 2026 - 06:06 PM.

[Mind]

Just my opinion, after seeing a lot of the data, periodic multi-day fasting (like once or twice a year), is probably better than one meal a day or compressed eating schedules. However, if the compressed eating schedule helps some obese people lose weight, then there would be a net benefit - most likely.

[pamojja]

In a letter to the editor: https://www.jandonli...0280-0/fulltext

 

Half of US adults have diabetes or prediabetes²⁰ and clinical trials suggest intermittent fasting may help them.^2,3 Confounded epidemiological claims to the opposite effect as a result of including smokers and non-healthy NHANES participants may cause harm.

 

How many ate only 2 or 1 meal per day, but most importantly, due to which co-morbid chronic conditions?

 

Found it, other than what I thought:

 

 

Most participants (56.7%) ate three meals per day. As shown in Table 1, compared with participants with three meals per day, participants eating fewer than three meals per day were more likely to be younger, men, non-Hispanic Black, with less education and lower family income, current smokers, heavy alcohol drinkers, higher physical activity levels, lower total energy intake and lower diet quality, food insecure, and higher frequency of snacks. They were less likely to have diabetes, and cancer at baseline.

The characteristics for participants who ate more than three meals per day were comparable to those for participants with three meals per day, except participants who ate more than three meals per day were more likely to be with higher physical activity levels, higher total energy intake, and higher diet quality, lower BMI, lower frequency of snacks, and less likely to have CVD at baseline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by pamojja, 27 February 2026 - 06:50 PM.

[Furniture]

Water fasting, as in only drinking water, or not even drinking water?

 

In either case, there could be some benefits to occasional fasting, but as a regular practice, I think the muscle loss and the subsequent feasting would likely offset those benefits.

 

Water fasting as in only water. Usually "water fasting" refers to this whereas "dry fasting" refers to fasting from both food AND water. 

[Cloomis]

Gotcha. Water fasting is damaging to muscle retention. It has to be built back, and slows overall progression. I did 5:2 water fasting for several years and wasn't able to build muscle effectively until I started getting 200-500 calories daily. Now that I've stopped fasting entirely, I'm building more muscle. This is manageable at younger ages -- I'm 55 now -- but will be brutal later in life, and I fear habits built in the first half of life are likely to persist even when they become more counter-productive.