Intermittent fasting linked to heart risk in study surprise

The safety of intermittent fasting, a popular strategy to lose weight by limiting food intake to certain times, was called into question by a surprise finding from research presented at a medical meeting.

Limiting mealtimes to a period of just eight hours a day was linked to a 91 per cent increase in risk of death from heart disease in the study, which was released on Monday in Chicago.

The American Heart Association published only an abstract, leaving scientists speculating about details of the study protocol. The study was reviewed by other experts prior to its release, according to the AHA.

Lifestyle interventions aimed at weight loss have come under scrutiny as a new generation of drugs help people shed pounds.

Some doctors questioned the study’s findings, saying they could have been skewed by differences - such as underlying heart health - between the fasting patients and the comparison group, whose members consumed food over a daily period of 12 to 16 hours.

“Time-restricted eating is popular as a means of reducing calorie intake,” Keith Frayn, emeritus professor of human metabolism at the University of Oxford, said in a statement to the UK Science Media Centre. “This work is very important in showing that we need long-term studies on the effects of this practice. But this abstract leaves many questions unanswered.”