Why Intermittent Fasting May Do More Harm Than Good

"Recent headlines warning of concerns such as heart risks or danger to teenagers have put a new spotlight on a diet trend that has long been the popular epitome of a healthy lifestyle: intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting's image has been deeply tarnishedand quite rightly so, says Stefan Kabisch, a physician at the endocrinology and metabolic medicine department at ChariteUniversity Medicine Berlin. The hype was never really backed up by good data in humans."

"Advocates have claimed that temporarily abstaining from food for long stretches of the day can improve health and longevity. In the most common fasting schedule, people don't eat for 16 hoursoften skipping breakfast or dinnerand make up for it in the remaining eight hours (the so-called 16:8 method). Some people may severely limit food intake every other day (alternate-day fasting) or take a fasting day twice a week (the 5:2 method)."

"Modern society has given way to lifestyles that encourage overeating, says Tinh-Hai Collet, a diabetologist and a professor at the Geneva University Hospitals. This promotes obesity and diabetes. Experts have called diabetes a global epidemic. Approximately 590 million people worldwide have diabetes, according to the latest 2025 reports from the International Diabetes Federationand more than 90 percent of them have type 2, often called adult-onset diabetes. One of the main issues in type 2 diabetes is that"

Intermittent fasting has become a popular lifestyle trend claiming improved health and longevity through prolonged daily or periodic abstention from food. Common methods include 16:8 time-restricted eating, alternate-day fasting, and the 5:2 regimen. Evidence from randomized controlled trials is heterogeneous because of many variations in fasting protocols, making assessment of effects difficult. Critics point out that the hype lacked solid human data and that new headlines raise concerns about cardiovascular risks and effects on teenagers. Modern overeating contributes to obesity and type 2 diabetes, which affects roughly 590 million people worldwide, over 90 percent of cases.

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