Intermittent fasting correlated with increased cardiovascular deaths

[RaddishPork]

Saw this study come out the other day but the results weren't finalized.

• People who followed a pattern of eating all of their food across less than 8 hours per day had a 91% higher risk of death due to cardiovascular disease.
• Among people with existing cardiovascular disease, an eating duration of no less than 8 but less than 10 hours per day was also associated with a 66% higher risk of death from heart disease or stroke.

I guess these shortened eating windows have been popularized by social media. Growing up I always heard people saying that nonsense about not eating past 7pm. The site has multiple references to people with cancer and pre-existing cardiovascular disease in the study which is probably skewing the results for healthy adults. But seeing that so many PED users are already at risk of heart disease and cancer, in combination of the strict dieting and a lot of intermittent fasting... Thought this was worth sharing.

Disclaimer - If there's one thing I've learned from statistics it's that no study is perfect. Lots of variables are not accounted for eg: Lazy and unhealthy people will be more likely to try these fad diets to attempt shortcuts. The highest BMI averages in the group was the 8-10 hours or less eating window and they also had the highest CV results with the lowest cancer scores. But this study also has a lot of smokers and drinkers in it. I'm just bored and wanted to post. Enjoy.

8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death

03/19/24 Editor’s note: The research authors have shared their full poster presentation for updated details about their research abstract. Please see the digital file attached, in the right hand column for these details. The most current statistics, ...

newsroom.heart.org

https://s3.amazonaws.com/cms.ipressroom.com/67/files/20242/8-h+TRE+and+mortality+AHA+poster_031924.pdf

 

[OldGHGuy]

Very good post. Thank you

 

[BrokenOne]

I'd be interested in seeing where the funding came from for this study....

I can only speak from personal experience, Did a 10 day water only fast in 2023 and it completely changed my whole view of the human body! I don't know how else to describe it, but our bodies are BUILT to fast! I don't mean intermittent fasting either, long term fasting! You hit that window around the 72hr mark and something changes in your body!

I run a business and its very manual work and I worked right through the fast. Worst thing I did was took Sat/Sun off and took it easy at home! GRIM!

Rest of the time, if I was busy, I was GTG. If I needed to pick up pace at work, even though my energy levels were down roughly 15%, the energy was just there when you dig for it.

I was interested in autophagy, not weight loss. It looks bad though when all the glycogen is sued up and all the water leaves your muscles... You

It will be something I do each year, especially because of my use of PED's.

 

[RaddishPork]

I'd be interested in seeing where the funding came from for this study....

I can only speak from personal experience, Did a 10 day water only fast in 2023 and it completely changed my whole view of the human body! I don't know how else to describe it, but our bodies are BUILT to fast! I don't mean intermittent fasting either, long term fasting! You hit that window around the 72hr mark and something changes in your body!

I run a business and its very manual work and I worked right through the fast. Worst thing I did was took Sat/Sun off and took it easy at home! GRIM!

Rest of the time, if I was busy, I was GTG. If I needed to pick up pace at work, even though my energy levels were down roughly 15%, the energy was just there when you dig for it.

I was interested in autophagy, not weight loss. It looks bad though when all the glycogen is sued up and all the water leaves your muscles... You

It will be something I do each year, especially because of my use of PED's.

I’ve heard quite a few people speak about the benefits of long fasts like that. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying the body was made to fast though. Are there any papers or explanations for that biologically? Totally not saying you’re wrong. That’s just a big claim and I’ve never looked into it myself.

Only reason I’m skeptical is because There are a lot of people who feel euphoric and amazing right before death. I’m not saying that fasting is the same as dying, just that feeling amazing isn’t a good metric to say we’re supposed to do something. Being on painkillers feels amazing too but they’re slowly destroying your nervous system the whole time. Again, not saying fasting is like heroin, but “feelings” are just chemical reactions occurring in the brain and body.

If theres any research showing the evolutionary biology of why we feel good after fasting I would really like to read that. My guess would be that back in the old times, you needed an extra “kick” for hunting and feeding yourself when you got close to the starvation point? No idea. . I’m highly interested in all sorts of detoxes and natural therapies. Another theory I have is that definitely believe modern food and life is horrible for humans and I can 100% understand why it feels good to stop the intake of sugar and billshit food. With all the processed carbs, sugar, caffeine, etc. it throws off our hormones and chemical balances and almost puts us in a fog. And I’ve heard a lot of people explain that fasting feeling as “coming out” of the daze that modern life puts us in.

Definitely not choosing a side on this one! I’d love some more info if anyone has it though.

 

[trtbuilder]

I'd be interested in seeing where the funding came from for this study....

I can only speak from personal experience, Did a 10 day water only fast in 2023 and it completely changed my whole view of the human body! I don't know how else to describe it, but our bodies are BUILT to fast! I don't mean intermittent fasting either, long term fasting! You hit that window around the 72hr mark and something changes in your body!

I run a business and its very manual work and I worked right through the fast. Worst thing I did was took Sat/Sun off and took it easy at home! GRIM!

Rest of the time, if I was busy, I was GTG. If I needed to pick up pace at work, even though my energy levels were down roughly 15%, the energy was just there when you dig for it.

I was interested in autophagy, not weight loss. It looks bad though when all the glycogen is sued up and all the water leaves your muscles... You

It will be something I do each year, especially because of my use of PED's.

Good way to lose tons of muscle you worked hard for. Very nice.

 

[BrokenOne]

Good way to lose tons of muscle you worked hard for. Very nice.

That's a fallacy... Over 10 days I lost 9.5kg in body weight. 5kg of that was fat used as the energy source during the fast. The other 4.5kg is 99+% WATER!

Glycogen holds water in your muscle (I forget the exact ratio), as you don't eat, your body is unable to restore the glycogen you normally call on for energy, it then starts pulling from your bodies glycogen stores in your muscle and as it does so, water is removed with it as it no longer has glycogen to bind to.

What you end up loosing (visually) is muscle VOLUME.... You don't actually loose any muscle cells! As soon as you start eating again, your glycogen is restored and it shuttle's water straight back into your muscles and restores the volume!

Within 3 days, the 4.5kg was back and all the volume had returned.

I NEVER would have believed it until I physically went and did it myself! Fasting went against everything I thought I knew about the human body! Completely blew my mind after experiencing it.

The absolute worst thing that might happen is that you won't gain any extra muscle during the fast... I would even say that this is incorrect due to the way autophagy works. You get a natural increase in GH secretion of roughly 600% and your body cleans itself of dead/damaged cells so that everything runs as streamlined as possible.

My personal experience was I came out of the fast and had a significant boost to the muscle I gained over the following 6wks post fast above what I would have normally expected to see. Not sure if that happens for everyone, just my personal experience.

 

[trtbuilder]

That's a fallacy... Over 10 days I lost 9.5kg in body weight. 5kg of that was fat used as the energy source during the fast. The other 4.5kg is 99+% WATER!

Glycogen holds water in your muscle (I forget the exact ratio), as you don't eat, your body is unable to restore the glycogen you normally call on for energy, it then starts pulling from your bodies glycogen stores in your muscle and as it does so, water is removed with it as it no longer has glycogen to bind to.

What you end up loosing (visually) is muscle VOLUME.... You don't actually loose any muscle cells! As soon as you start eating again, your glycogen is restored and it shuttle's water straight back into your muscles and restores the volume!

Within 3 days, the 4.5kg was back and all the volume had returned.

I NEVER would have believed it until I physically went and did it myself! Fasting went against everything I thought I knew about the human body! Completely blew my mind after experiencing it.

The absolute worst thing that might happen is that you won't gain any extra muscle during the fast... I would even say that this is incorrect due to the way autophagy works. You get a natural increase in GH secretion of roughly 600% and your body cleans itself of dead/damaged cells so that everything runs as streamlined as possible.

My personal experience was I came out of the fast and had a significant boost to the muscle I gained over the following 6wks post fast above what I would have normally expected to see. Not sure if that happens for everyone, just my personal experience.

It's not a fallacy. Look at Peter Attia's tracking of LBM over the years while doing long fasts. He's totally abandoned fasting because the trade off of muscle loss wasn't worth it. I'm sure steroids help maintain more than him, but you're still losing a significant amount with a doubt.

 

[BrokenOne]

I’ve heard quite a few people speak about the benefits of long fasts like that. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying the body was made to fast though. Are there any papers or explanations for that biologically? Totally not saying you’re wrong. That’s just a big claim and I’ve never looked into it myself.

Only reason I’m skeptical is because There are a lot of people who feel euphoric and amazing right before death. I’m not saying that fasting is the same as dying, just that feeling amazing isn’t a good metric to say we’re supposed to do something. Being on painkillers feels amazing too but they’re slowly destroying your nervous system the whole time. Again, not saying fasting is like heroin, but “feelings” are just chemical reactions occurring in the brain and body.

If theres any research showing the evolutionary biology of why we feel good after fasting I would really like to read that. My guess would be that back in the old times, you needed an extra “kick” for hunting and feeding yourself when you got close to the starvation point? No idea. . I’m highly interested in all sorts of detoxes and natural therapies. Another theory I have is that definitely believe modern food and life is horrible for humans and I can 100% understand why it feels good to stop the intake of sugar and billshit food. With all the processed carbs, sugar, caffeine, etc. it throws off our hormones and chemical balances and almost puts us in a fog. And I’ve heard a lot of people explain that fasting feeling as “coming out” of the daze that modern life puts us in.

Definitely not choosing a side on this one! I’d love some more info if anyone has it though.

Well worth the time to dig into! My brother-in-law got me into it. He had done a few 5 day water fast over the last 2yrs and said I should give them a go. Eventually started watching a few things on youtube and thought why not.

A few points off the top of my head, keep in mind, my primary goal with fasting was autophagy, not fat loss. I'm mainly interested in autophagy due to an extensive PED use history over decades, I liked the idea that it might clean out damaged cells.

The way I think of it is that autophagy is a healing/repair state, it naturally exists in our bodies but due to our modern dietary habits (an abundance of food always on hand and being taught we must eat 3+ times a day) our bodies never go through natural fasting periods (Tribe runs out of a kill, so off we go hunting an animal that requires days of not eating while expending large amounts of energy with periods of high energy expenditure while chasing down an attempted kill).

So, we are going on a hunt and our body starts preparing itself for a natural period of fasting. It wants to run as streamlined as possible during this period. As the body starts using up the stored glycogen, it triggers the body to start looking back at itself (think of this as self cannibalism... But in a beneficial way)

One of the first things it does is increase natural GH secretion roughly 600%.

It then starts scavenging the body for old/damaged cells so it can operate more efficiently.

It also switches over to using fat as the primary energy source as glycogen is depleted (This happens roughly around the 48-72hr mark) I used ketosis sticks to track this in my urine.

The way I think about this is that while ever we are putting food in, the body is focusing ALL its energy into metabolizing that food and it never gets time to enter its natural repair mechanism (autophagy). This is a relatively modern thing as most of human history, food has not always been plentiful or secure.

A word of warning, A LOT of people who regularly fast recommend using "snake juice" to replenish certain minerals. I didn't, but I have had extensive cramping issues for the last 20yrs so always have powdered magnesium with me at all times and whenever I get a cramp, dump that in water and drink it down. So, that's what I continued to do during the fast. Can't really say if I got more cramps during the fast then normal, normally I get 2-3 per week and it was much the same during the fast.

Also, if you do do a fast that's longer then 5 days, look at refeeding when breaking the fast. This is just adding certain foods back in at certain times (usually over 1 day) to restart your gut biome. Many people claim its not needed until around a 10 day fast but to me, why wouldn't I to give myself the best outcome.

The refeeding I used was:
1 - 1 tablespoon of avocado (Healthy fat), then wait 1hr
2 - Sauerkraut/natural yoghurt - 1 small handful (Priming the gut with good bacteria), then wait 1hr
3 - Steamed fibrous vegies/veggie soup (Fiber = Fuel for the gut bacteria)
4 - Bone broth - Gut nutrients (I made up 1ltr of this in a thermos and sipped on it throughout the day)
5 - Eggs/fish/beef/lamb/chicken - Supports gut growth. I had 3 protein meals spread out through rest of the day 1hr after the steamed vegies. This consisted of a small handful of protein each mean and about the same again of the steamed vegies.

I then went into a semi-comp diet coming out of the refeed. I just ate clean, didn't add back in shit like sugar or processed foods and did that pretty comfortably for 3mths.

If you have even a passing interest in learning more about it, there is great content on youtube from a heap of channels that delves right into the mechanisms and what's going on when in the body.

Not going to say it was easy, especially doing a 10 day fast right off the bat... But what I experienced fundamentally changed my entire outlook about what I thought I knew about the human body! Not only was it worth the self discipline, its now become a thing I will do at least once per year but ideally once each 6mths. I personally think that fits in well with my bodybuilding.

I also found that I had great training focus, intensity and above my average lean muscle gains for roughly 6 weeks post fast.

All up, I'd say it was a massive net benefit to my training, and hopefully a net benefit to my long term health!

 

[BrokenOne]

It's not a fallacy. Look at Peter Attia's tracking of LBM over the years while doing long fasts. He's totally abandoned fasting because the trade off of muscle loss wasn't worth it. I'm sure steroids help maintain more than him, but you're still losing a significant amount with a doubt.

What were the lengths of his fasts?

How often did he do the fasts?

How many fasts did he do per year?

Was he doing intermittent fasting, or long water only fasts (longer then 3 days)?

All these things are going to have very real impacts in the LBM data.

I'll do a MAX of 2 fasts per year, 10 days x 2.... That leaves 345 days for me to grow.... Literally the ONLY thing I'm interested in from fasting is autophagy! Its not a lifestyle thing for me, its not a fat loss thing....

Try it before passing judgement.... That's all I'll say. I'm not here to convince ANYONE that they should do it, just relating my personal experience.

I have noticed zero muscle loss from fasting, in fact, the exact opposite! But 1 fast does not make a pattern either so I will see if that trend continues moving forwards.

 

[trtbuilder]

What were the lengths of his fasts?

How often did he do the fasts?

How many fasts did he do per year?

Was he doing intermittent fasting, or long water only fasts (longer then 3 days)?

All these things are going to have very real impacts in the LBM data.

I'll do a MAX of 2 fasts per year, 10 days x 2.... That leaves 345 days for me to grow.... Literally the ONLY thing I'm interested in from fasting is autophagy! Its not a lifestyle thing for me, its not a fat loss thing....

Try it before passing judgement.... That's all I'll say. I'm not here to convince ANYONE that they should do it, just relating my personal experience.

I have noticed zero muscle loss from fasting, in fact, the exact opposite! But 1 fast does not make a pattern either so I will see if that trend continues moving forwards.

I've done it in the past. Now I'm uninterested due to muscle loss. You do you.

 

[buck]

A 91% increases may be meaningless without knowing how any actually died. I 1 person died in the standard group and 2 died in the fasting group that is an increase of 100%. Yet can be far less then 1% of the group being studies, just for example. I put little faith in % in studies without seeing the hard #. And studies where people self report over long periods of time can have a lot of error. And what other life style factors were involved for each group. Can't say i have seen any added long term health effects from animal studies. Mostly calorie restriction seems to lead to longer life in animal groups.

 

[AlexDavis43]

What were the lengths of his fasts?

How often did he do the fasts?

How many fasts did he do per year?

Was he doing intermittent fasting, or long water only fasts (longer then 3 days)?

For a while he was doing: 1 week normal diet, 1 week keto, 1 week fasting, 1 week keto, repeat. Or something like that. It was a while ago.

He fainted and fell on his face causing lacerations during one of his fasts. Kept doing it for a while longer. That's dedication (jk). But yeah Iirc he said the muscle loss was bad.

 

[AlexDavis43]

I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying the body was made to fast though. Are there any papers or explanations for that biologically? Totally not saying you’re wrong. That’s just a big claim and I’ve never looked into it myself.

The body is good at not dying of starvation.

But I'd like to think we're on the opposite end of the spectrum: trying to optimize health and body composition, not just "not die" from starvation.

 

[AlexDavis43]

If it's autophagy you want (for whatever reason), we already got it with exercise. Study.

 

[RaddishPork]

A 91% increases may be meaningless without knowing how any actually died. I 1 person died in the standard group and 2 died in the fasting group that is an increase of 100%. Yet can be far less then 1% of the group being studies, just for example. I put little faith in % in studies without seeing the hard #. And studies where people self report over long periods of time can have a lot of error. And what other life style factors were involved for each group. Can't say i have seen any added long term health effects from animal studies. Mostly calorie restriction seems to lead to longer life in animal groups.

Yeah I lost some faith in it when I saw how many people were smokers and/or drinkers.

Very hard to say that fasting was linked to heart related deaths when some of the participants are puffing a pack a day. But I can still see the shortened eating windows being stressful.

I see at as the same logic as people cycling on / off multiple times a year as opposed to BnC.

Limiting yourself to only eating 8 hours a day is making your body go a long time without consistent nutrition and then hammering everything you need in a small window (cycling)

Whereas keeping some amount of food in your system all day (BnC) and having bigger meals occasionally is a reasonable workload at all times.

 

[buck]

Yeah I lost some faith in it when I saw how many people were smokers and/or drinkers.

Very hard to say that fasting was linked to heart related deaths when some of the participants are puffing a pack a day. But I can still see the shortened eating windows being stressful.

I see at as the same logic as people cycling on / off multiple times a year as opposed to BnC.

Limiting yourself to only eating 8 hours a day is making your body go a long time without consistent nutrition and then hammering everything you need in a small window (cycling)

Whereas keeping some amount of food in your system all day (BnC) and having bigger meals occasionally is a reasonable workload at all times.

I don't think intermittent fasting is designed around trying to gain weight and muscle. So trying to adapt it to that may not be optimal.

I think part of the upside for many average people is that they will eat less as they wont try to hammer down their calories as they are not trying to grow, but actually want to lose weight. My experience it when i was eating 6 meals a day which i did for over 25 years. My digestive system never got a break.

. Muscles and the rest of the body need time to recover why not the digestive system. I find i get less digest upsets when the body is not processing food. Once one stops eating a meal it is still digesting for s a few hours. So fasting really doesn't start when the last mouthful is swallowed.

Not eating for many hours seems pretty natural to me i doubt ancient man ate on a schedule. So breaks between meals would seem to be what our bodies were geared for i think.