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Comment by BelleOfTheBall | Hacker News Reader

The weight loss is cool and all but it seems like a bad idea to just start doing this method until there's a long-term study about the effects this has on your body. What if you stick to it for a few years and ruin your body? 12 weeks is not nearly enough for conclusive results.

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If we weighed the known effects of being overweight against the possible harmful effects of intermittent fasting, in all likelihood there's no debate at all.

People have been going on intermittent fasting schedules for centuries.

Ramadan being a good example.

This is also by no means the first study into intermittent fasting.

While we certainly don't know every detail about what the optimal pattern is, the idea that you might "ruin your body" by limiting your eating to a 10 your window seems far fetched.

Ramadan isn't a constant diet, though, it's only for a month in a year. I'm talking about doing intermittent fasting as a regular daily diet. But, yeah, maybe I worded it a bit too severely.

I can't imagine maintaining a ten-hour eating window for years would have any negative effects. That's basically "breakfast at 9am, dinner over by 7pm". I hardly even consider that a restriction.

It can be done and only start is hard. I speak from experience - since around 2012 I eat only from ~21 to ~midnight, each day every day. I also meticulously note my meals in a "calorie notebook".

I am healthy, thin and I love food.

Sometimes I think I would be a good test subject, heh.

They intentionally did a very mild form of intermittent fasting to mitigate the risk of bodily damage, there are people who adhere to 2 day a week fasts, and the like

I'm not aware of any studies but muslims have been doing seasonal intermittent fasting for a long time - Ramadan.

id argue that giving your body food (and sugar) all of the time is a much bigger risk that has harmful long term effects on your body.

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