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Comment by gwerbret | Hacker News Reader

The title in HN ("(Any) 8-hour time-restricted-eating window effective for weight loss") is heavily editorialized from that of the NIH blurb ("Timeframe of 8-hour restricted eating irrelevant to weight loss"), but actually better reflects the findings of the actual paper ([1], unfortunately paywalled). They found that people who fasted for 16 straight hours a day lost (a little bit) more weight over 12 weeks than those who followed a Mediterranean diet. However, the weight loss didn't represent a loss of visceral fat (around the abdominal organs, fat which is more likely to be associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease) and so the essential finding was that the time-restricted fasting made no difference.

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39775037/

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thanks for this summary

speaking of visceral fat, do you happen to have pointers how to reduce that?

Fat distribution, including subcutaneous vs visceral, has very clear racial/ethnic genetic associations, not to mention sex. East Asian and especially South Asian groups skew much more toward visceral fat, while European and especially African groups toward subcutaneous fat. Beyond calories in/calories out, generalized advice in this context might not be as helpful on an individual basis as with other health matters. In the context of diet & weight things are already complicated, but at least in this area we know why and can more easily predict how one person's body is likely to respond vs another. (Though, it might just come down to some ethnic groups having to put in alot more effort--e.g. much greater reduction in overall weight--than others for the same reduction in visceral fat.)

Visceral fat has long-term memory, and also come as the last in the line. So the diet mentioned in the study may not have started the visceral fat reduction at all…

And I forgot, you have to exercise, HIIT, calories deficit is not enough.

Forget about Ozempic and other drugs, they are good for people with diabetes. And you have to use them for the rest of life, otherwise there is yoyo effect.

> However, the weight loss didn't represent a loss of visceral fat (around the abdominal organs, fat which is more likely to be associated with diabetes and cardiovascular disease) and so the essential finding was that the time-restricted fasting made no difference.

You're making a bit of a leap with "made no difference."

It's well-known that the body "holds on to" visceral fat in many cases, i.e. in order to reduce visceral fat, we first have to lose all the other excess fat. Which the TRE diet achieved: 5-7 pounds in 12 weeks is no small feat!

> You're making a bit of a leap with "made no difference."

I was paraphrasing the results of the study, which was designed specifically to see if fasting would reduce visceral fat as compared to a non-fasting regimen. If you read the abstract I cited, you'll see that there's not even any mention of overall body weight in the abstract -- that finding is buried in a figure of the paper, and mentioned basically in passing.

As for losing losing visceral fat versus other fat, that's partially true, but reality is a little bit more complex than that. Two people with the same 20% body fat can have radically different proportions of visceral and subcutaneous (under the skin) fat, and it's the person with more visceral fat who is at risk. This is why you have studies like this designed to find ways to target visceral fat.

those read the same to me, to be fair; although the important bit is "fasting for 16 consecutive hours", perhaps that gets to the point more effectively.

I've read that intermittent fasting has more "holistic" value than just losing a little bit more weight, specifically on blood sugar or insulin levels, as well as fat storage.

weight loss for health reasons should probably be coordinated with an expert who can look at your contemporary and historical blood tests. To be safest.

It's a bit to do with a change in diet and lifestyle to accompany the eating window but there is definitely something else at play as well.

The human body is an amazing machine and it has all sorts of abilities that we are unaware of. When you starve, your body starts shutting down non essential things first, starts pulling nutrients from everywhere it and limiting activity. Starvation has both a physical and mental element to it - both during the process and following it.

Intermittent fasting has been demonstrated to start a regenerative process in the body. It triggers cellular autophagy, which is kind of like running a cellular defrag.

There have been a lot of studies lately that look into the regenerative aspects of deep sleep following a serious injury - I sus that's the same system behind both things.

In response to the stress of not eating as usual, the body reacts. The mind does too. It sucks while you are starting it but it's nice to be able to know that you can skip of day of eating and be fine. After eating a big dinner and a good night's sleep you should have more energy and feel better for no real reason. I sus this has to do with how we ate while we were evolving - life was just a cycle of involuntarily intermittent fasting.

Unless you do strenuous activity all day - food is energy, you will be wore out of you do too much. The food you first eat after matters too!

Don't make a donut or highly processed/sweetened food the first nutrients after fasting - you'll feel like you ran a marathon. Simple carbs and protein - rice and black beans or oatmeal with seeds is typically what I do.

Everyone is different tho - whatever works for you! All the best of luck, sorry this is apparently my rant for the day - better topic than normal

I've been following Jason Fung and "intermittent fasting" for six or seven years.

I notice that the specific wording "time-restricted eating" has gained popularity in the past couple of years, possibly because "time-restricted" is less of a red flag to the public than "fasting," which may bring up some emotional baggage.

The reason for renaming is just speculation on my part - what's clear is that the eating protocol is the same, only the wording is different.

when i hear "intermittent fasting" i think once or twice a week. Also it's not a silver bullet, but it does "shrink the stomach" a bit if you are mindful of the volume of food you consume to break the fast. better to, as your sibling said, break with a light meal with all the macronutrients and a decent chunk of micronutrients and vitamins than a lumberjack's breakfast. Or if you break in the evenings, the buffet is probably not ideal.

Maybe when people realize they don't need as much food as they thought - especially grasses (sugar, wheat, corn, specifically), they can "change their relationship with food."

or just ozempic i guess, what do i know.

hey i wanted to ninja and let you know i have no problem with what you or sibling said, at all. I'm just speaking to the topic, not trying to argue. I realize a skim makes it seem like i was disagreeing!

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