The study is useless imo. Between the confounders, variables, and known unknowns the only thing you can conclude is that you can't conclude anything from this. Nothing to see here.

I’ve eaten within an 8-hour window for years, and am now dead.

Also worth mentioning the survey data collected is of several years but they did not concluded these people were fasting by looking at the responses of every single day of those years, they only chose 2 days (yes only 2 days) of 15 years (5000+ days) of data and based on those 2 days they concluded these people were fasting because they skipped breakfast or ate only during certain hours, only using this as a reference to conclude fasting caused health problems is strange, it should be more rigorous. Especially since they don't know what these people were eating when not fasting, regardless of anyone's opinion on fasting this conclusion is weak at best. Authors themselves commented these results could be caused by the diet and not fasting, reverse causality. So these headlines make no sense.

I just assumed the results were due to poor diet quality of people who do IF. All my friends who do IF live on coffee, cream, steak and low carb tortillas. It’s shocking IF was only linked to heart disease.

Hey Mic! Therapist here: I wanted to correct your comment that bingeing and purging is bulimia; this is a common misconception. Anorexia also has a binge/purge specifier. If someone is bingeing and purging, and have a BMI under 17, they would likely be diagnosed with anorexia with said specifier. With a BMI above 17, they would likely meet criteria for bulimia.

No-one has answered the question on my mind which was whether the "fasting" was associated with later bedtimes or less hours of sleep. Sleep has such a profound impact on heart attack rates.

When I first got into intermittent fasting it was through a group, "One Meal a Day." What bothered me was that the folks doing this were often eating huge, saturated fat heavy meals after fasting for 16 to 20 hours. IF helped me to lose weight, but I did try to keep my meals fairly balanced and healthy. While I do think that long ago this is how we often ate, being forced to fast during times of scarcity and then chowing down when it became available. But often that food was foraged vegetables or berries or fish/game whose meat was relatively lean. Those following OMAD were instead eating foods full of fat and sugar.

I wonder what the results would look like if the subjects ate a whole food plant based diet (or even just a plant based diet) and ate breakfast & lunch, rather than lunch & dinner.

Why did you ignore the fact that the

Wow, I'm stunned by this. I never eat breakfast simply because eating that early in the morning make me feel nauseous. I'd like to see a study where they test Vegans and intermittent fasting.

Hi Mic, love your work - been a vegan since I was 14, I'm 18 now, I fell into the trap of excessive protein consumption but after reading quite a few studies I've realised that I was eating way too much and that (despite what I thought) too much protein can be harmful (and that in general people overestimate how much they need). Could you possibly make a video on protein consumption (and the risks of overconsumption) since the literature is a bit unclear and difficult to wade through? In any case, thank you for all that you do.

Yes, I'd dismiss the study. Not snacking until right before bed will not give you a heart attack, period. EVERYONE I know who fasts intermittently does either high fat (you basically have to fast, because the meals are so hard to digest) or skips breakfast and then slams a big meal with a bunch of refined carbs just before bed.

I do one meal a day. I either eat in the mid afternoon or mid evening depending on my work schedule. I don't drink coffee and don't consume any zero calorie stimulants. Just pure ro water. Getting life energy from food, water and air. And my job burns like 3k calories everyday. I'm able to do it. I've been vegan for 9 years and have been if for about 2. Don't consume any processed foods. Most whole mono organic meals. And I eat 2000 calories in a meal easy. Mostly do it to control my intake of food. I love to eat and am not afraid to but when I do even when I ate 3 times a day I lose control by eating fast and eating more than I need to. So its helped being able to change my food type and quality and controlling when I consume food. Breaking into the ability to fast if needed one day

This finding makes sense to me. I have been in a lab studying ageing in a model organism, nematodes, for 2 years. It seems clear that hormesis, the beneficial, lifespan-increasing effect of minor stress like nutritional stress (fasting), only seems to appear in early developmental stages in the animals, while the same stress kills adults faster.

I'm very much into fitness culture. The people most likely to do short window intermittent fasting are: Sumo wrestlers, bodybuilders, ketogenic dieters, and very obese people trying to crash diet. Fasting causes stress, stress doesn't cause fasting. I guarantee it has nothing to do with people working "stressful jobs" or whatever, that's pure speculation.

I've been intermittent fasting for almost a year now. These studies could scare me into having a heart attack!

I have always been a big fan of eating.

The study on people that skipped breakfast having more CV risk also smoked more than the rest of the groups and had the highest BMI. Studies on this stuff really need track people eating healthy diets with exercise and no obvious risk factors: do whole food vegans (or maybe for the sake of population size mediterranean) who are physically active and dont smoke or drink have greater risk than those that eat more often? Does meal size and saturated fat play a role? Majority of the people I know that intermittent fast or just only eat within a small window or skip breakfast, usually drink tonnes of coffee, smoke, drink a bit, and are eating processed stuff quickly, and definitely not vegan.

Thanks for sharing. I have been a whole food ethical vegan for many years and fully believe in intermittent fasting using healthy whole foods. I think the problem is that some humans may gorge on tons of food at meals, or/and eat the wrong food. Some IF fans only in a 4 hour window. I do not know how they get enough calories, however... We humans do not like to feel deprived. I am a personal fan of an 8-9 hour window of healthy meals and not eating after 4pm. I also read one study that stated most Americans eat regular meals plus snack several times a day.

Great show! I thought it was really funny that when you were talking about the vitamin supplement , a commercial popped up for "30 beef sticks for 30 dollars". The timing of that was funny!

I was fasting 8 hour windows without knowing that people call that fasting. I wasn't simply hungry enough to eat something. Should I force myself to eat more often? I often can't eat breakfast because its too early in the morning. Most of the times I am not hungry at all in 8 hours. Why should I eat when I am not even hungry?

LDL vs Fasting There is probably no A1c type test for LDL levels to show long trend LDL levels, but recently I have discovered that fasting will increase LDL. In the same way that eating a few bananas can briefly raise the blood glucose level and yet be perfectly healthy and normal in a primate we must keep in mind that at some point in the fasting there is a proven increase in LDL of maybe up to 30%. My guess is the increase corresponds with autophagy and is part of the repair process, but is this rise in LDL really indicative of damage or long lasting? Not likely. We have seen plenty of research on the benefits of fasting. It would be most interesting to see how transient the LDL rise can be or a graph of LDL vs hours since eating with a strictly whole plant diet. Currently the pre lipid test advice is that fasting is not necessary for lipid tests if I recall correctly. One wonders if fasting may actually skew the results temporarily upward but without harm to the patient..and possibly benefit??? Again, I'm just guessing and quoting McDougall...but "It's the food!" In a control environment eating the exact same whole plant foods and calories WHAT should we expect in our testing and long term results. Obviously, our primate cousins forage and eat mostly in the earlier part of day and are not up late at night stuffing calories watching TV..unless they are zoo chimps eating pizza, and they don't live too long. In humans there has been a LONG tradition of monastic practice in Asia of eating only til noonish on foods donated for alms, and before modernization there were many long lived healthy monks. Nowadays, in Thailand there is an obesity crisis among monks. The eating window the same, but I have seen the locals making merit bringing them burgers, fries, oily fried foods and soda etc and the monks are now dying of diabetes and heart disease at a very young age. Looks like the faithful are actually killing the young holy men with kindness and would do better giving them rice and beans and vegetables as in the old days!!

Thank you! So useful!

An obvious confounder is terrible diets, both before and while doing time restricted feeding. Personally, I stop eating in the early evening, but leave it at that.

Been doing IF 16/8 since 2016 but not into low-carb or keto stuff, just whole food but with some animal products in the mix. Generally very active and doing it all for the telomeres and autophagy than weight management. Alarming study but didn’t control for diet or lifestyle so I’ll happily continue doing the thing that was considered fine for millennia.

Great video. Again. Thanks. I have a question. is the presumed higher death rate among people who do TRE or intermitted fasting maybe caused by or linked to exercise. If you have eaten to little or to much you might not have the energy to excercise.

I don't get the concept of skipping breakfast. As long as you have a first meal SOME time during the day, that's breaking the fast, as in "breakfast". I am up for 2-3 hours before I eat, so does that mean I'm a breakfast skipper?

Hey Mike! Great video again! About the stress hypothesis: My experience is that some people do like you suggest Mike - eat all day when they are more stressed, some lose appetite (and don't self-soothe with food) so they eat less and at fewer occasions. So my guess is that both types are in this study and the "ledd than 8 hours"-group probably picks up a bunch of the latter. About the "better study because of unintentional IF" - I guess it would depend on how well they control for food quality. If they could do that with great certainty it is a nice natural experiment, otherwise there's a big risk that they also had poorer quality of their food. Another factor which seems important to denote is which time of day where they eating. If there were a lot of shift-workers like Gil suggested, and they had their eating window late in the day or even into the night, their circadian rhythm probably were worse off as well. I would love it if a bunch of the participants of the Framingham Heart study did IF for a long time. That would be super interesting! ;D Thanks again! Cheers from Sweden

Are you really skipping breakfast when ultimately you're breaking the fast. What exactly makes breakfast different? Eating before 9:00 a.m.? And then getting a little infrared. I think maybe we digest earlier in the day better. But if someone was simply eating whole plant foods, a well-planned variety, and not gorging, why it would matter if they ate within an 8-hour window versus a 10-hour window or 12. Maybe it's indicative of being more active. I wonder what other lifestyle behaviors these people have in common. Is anyone going to tell us what they were eating?

First! No but really, thanks for making awsome content. Will make sure to watch this one thoroughly!

I did intermittent fasting for yeaears. Not that I ever heard of it, I just felt better by not eating through the day and stuffing my face after work in the evening. "For me every day is Ramadan," as I would like to call it "apart from drinking water and coffee with milk".

Only I can hear is maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, Not pear reviewed. But it is in the news already. Absolutely disgusting.

Intermittent fasting was unheard of when this study started twenty years ago. Only 400 were intermittent fasting compared to 20,000. Smaller groups have wider variations and when you adjust for many factors the pool of people tested gets smaller and smaller. Plus the starting age was about 40 when heart attacks are very rare. They looked only at two days on average, who knows what happened in the remaining 15 years.

IF took my blood pressure from 188/90 To 135/ 80

Thanks!

Cool video. ❤

What were these people eating? And it would be cool to control for a time of day. But also in the context of sleeping patterns. Like Dr Greger has said, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a Prince, dinner like a pauper. But that can be done in an 8-hour window without having to overindulge.

Spreading fat intake across more meals will help to reduce the peak lipid concentration in the circulation.

A couple of years ago I heard Dr. Valter Longo (longevity doctor) say on a podcast that no benefit on longevity was found for the 8 hour feeding window, but the 12 hour window appeared to correlate with longevity.

I definitely unintentionally did this when i was working a lot, ate no breakfast because my day started early, no lunch because work gets busy or i forget to bring food, and would be too tired to eat when i would get home. So terrible

You've brushed over your right hand side hair bit. Well done

I'm going to reserve judgement until more info comes available, one thing is intermittent fasting shouldn't mean binge eating lol I can't face breakfast never have been able to have it, I.F always seems to give me a clearer head and more energy when I stick to it so I will be disappointed if all this is true, I'm hoping it's some anomaly such as people combining it with keto or carne which are both terrible in the long term

8:47 "25000 calories over

It depends on what meals you skip. If you skip breakfast and eat big meals at night, it is bad.

Ty❤

I skip breakfasts, I am just not hungry in the morning, but my meals are on the smaller side (compared to what I see my colleagues eat) and I have banned oil from my cooking. I feel pretty safe 😊 Thank you for sharing the information, Mic ❤

I have done several 9 day dry fasts feeling wonderful and cleared lyme Disease

Looking at the population of IF eaters it is no surprise, because a lot of sick and fat people do IF for it's (supposed) health benefits and weight loss

Intermittent fasting is not done specifically to lose weight - Mic is making a lot of assumptions today.

Pet peeve: you can never actually skip breakfast. Breakfast literally is "break the fast" that you were on as you slept. So your first meal of the day is always breakfast whether you eat it at 8 AM or 4 PM, or whether you have pancakes or a sandwich.

I'm tired of survery studies being spread around the internet. Without actual research finding a cause, all this does is frighten and confuse people. This kind of study should stay within the research world, help guide research to find causal stuff that is worth sharing with the world.

@15:45 or so, @MictheVegan, so, what if you DON'T go for higher fat foods after skipping breakfast? I am never hungry when I wake up, just thirsty, so I have a serving or three of diet cola. I generally snack/browse, if I feel peckish, whenever I feel the urge to eat, but I look at the calories, and understand what one whole wheat tortilla and some hummus are going to give me. Or a Vegan pot pie. Or a Vegan burrito. I'm still a bit fat, but that's because I drink alcohol, due to pain and depression. There's a lot there, so I'll leave that there. The question is, "If you skip breakfast, but then eat healthily otherwise, is that still a problem?" It begs the question, "If I am not hungry for breakfast, should I force myself to eat something?" After 5 years Vegan, my LDL is 96, HDL is 54. I am on Prevachol (a statin), but I skip doses a lot. I am 55, also taking meds for HIV suppression, depression, and HBP. I smoke one menthol cig per day, and am a regular smoker of mari.... an herb where it is entirely legal. Last year, I was diagnosed with moderately calcified coronary arteries (all of them), and a mildly enlarged heart. This year, after taking a crappier K2 supplement (I mistakenly got the MK-4), my heart is no longer enlarged. Waiting to hear about the calcification. I almost bought your supplement, but that price is just way to steep for me. I used to buy Vitalert at WalMart, but they stopped carrying it. It was the only multi w/o gelatin. I don't think it has K2, and I am not sure about its sources for D(don't know which number) and E. I would need to check. I am poor, and need easier sources for these vitamins. I wish I could find powdered natto.

We also have to take into account that almost universally we see a decrease in appetite in people with serious and terminal illness. This could be a major correlation showing up in this data (if they didn't adjust for it). So it might for example not be accidental intermittent fasting but could also be a symptom manifesting in people with a terminal illness that is about to kill them, which could partly explain these increadibly high mortality rates.

Research into IF in the future is going to be so confuzzled thanks to keto diets, as it is super big in that community. Good luck to anyone trying to untangle that mess.

I wonder if there are any studies wrt fasting during Ramadan? That seems to often mean high food intake in a smaller time window.

Thanks Mic! Was really excited to watch this.

What is breakfast? Is it a meal eaten at a certain time of the day or is it a meal eaten a certain amount of time after waking up?

I always crave fruits when i am fasting. I never crave anything fatty or cooked.

So what about someone who eats only lunch, snack, dinner, only eats a whole food plant-based diet, and eats around 2000 cal a day?

I have been trying a time-restricted eating schedule - by skipping breakfast - and haven't noticed feeling any health benefits. Porridge for breakfast tomorrow!

🌞 Blessings

If you go to Nutrition Made Simple's YT page the first pinned video is an interview with a doctor who claims you can eat 42 eggs a day and it won't raise your cholesterol levels. Pretty sure their channel isn't a reputable source.

As always, your video of a new study analysis is by far the best! Best research from you, lots of new valuable information, and as usual: presented in such an entertaining way. Big fan here!

I wonder about the 24-hour to 3 day fasts that are supposed to boost autophagy.

is it like a micro refeeding syndrome effect because they eat very much all at once and the body has a difficult time to suddenly adjust at processing all that?

Most of the people I know who eat in a narrower time window skip breakfast, eat a light lunch, followed by two candy bars and pizza and mozzarella sticks for dinner.

Hearing that makes me think about are there any links between fasting and the diet they have? Like are they more likely to be carnivore?

You’re just very smart Mic

Another good video Mic. In case someone hasn't brought up this source on "intermittent fasting", has anyone looked at the years of research at Loma Linda University? The Seventh Day Adventists have been eating within a 8 to 14 hour window for a few generations. In the beginning it was (and is) by scriptural prescription. Adherents still follow this schedule pretty much but most SDA's are no longer plant exclusive (vegan). Dr. Hans Diehl spent his professional career working at Loma Linda U to better understand the ups and downs of the way SDA's live. Considering that the SDA's have over 200 hospitals around the world their data is a more macro perspective than most. I unwittingly began eating a

Yes, I am a little leery of some of these claims these “experts” are touting about intermittent fasting. I tried it for about 2 weeks and I did lose weight but felt like crap. It did not make me feel energized, quite the opposite.

There were a number of "studies" lately binding CVD mortality to all (un)possible causes. All, but one. And I'm not allowed to say which one.

It resulting in - 1) eating too much in one meal, 2) eating more overall and esp saturated fat (due to skipping breakfast). Makes most sense - as we already know these are risk factors.

Guessing they're dying from taking diet pills and caffeine to avoid eating.

What about a 50/50 vegan junkfood/healthy diet vs that diet on if but not eating big meals? Works quite well for me, I fast 20hrs regularly but when I break the fast, I have a „normal“ meal as if I wouldn’t have fasted😅 any rythm is dead anyway after almost 14years of shift work😂(24/7, 365)

Hi Mic, great job as always, but I have a bone to pick with you about your Complement ad. It’s just not remotely true that you pay more buying the vitamins separately, and I think you know this. 50/month plus another 10 for shipping would be 3 times more than what I pay for my multi plus DHA/EPA (I get 90 pills). Let’s keep it honest. I have nothing against the company, they sell a good product, but they cost more when compared to other options.

Very interesting. I don't claim to "know" but I am wondering if it has to do with excess adrenaline in the body. From what I understand, when the body goes without any kind of glucose, it can spike your adrenaline. Add caffeine, which many intermittent fasters rely on, even more adrenaline is coursing thru the body. The adrenals are not getting any healthy glucose to function well and thus adrenaline spikes happen. From what I understand, adrenaline spikes are very damaging to the body. Maybe that is also contributing to this problem. PS I got this from Medical Medium. He has a really interesting podcast on intermittent fasting. He isn't a fan of it because it's rough on the body.

Dr. Longo has claimed that eating in shorter than a 13 hour window in the long term can be hard on the gall bladder.

Yes, I agree. We need to investigate further is the point. What isn't recognized is the adrenal/cortisol component. Fasting all day pushes adrenaline and cortisol you do feel better. Eating a lot of fat/meat pushes adrenaline (and damages testosterone levels). Going vegan and substantially decreasing your caloric intake also pushes adrenaline, so ppl feel good initially but crash or lose all their hair. Going carnivore, runs the adrenals and some people feel great. Cold plunging, cryotherapy, and hyperventilation can also run the adrenals and make ppl feel euphoric. Others, with weak adrenals, feel horrible on it. If you're running on adrenaline from IF, you're gonna feel good. And you can keep this up for a while when you're young. But as you get older, the toll on your body from constant cortisol/adrenaline is worse. People saying they've been IF for a while and are ok, is like people snorting cocaine for years and saying they haven't died from it so it's ok.

According to Dr Will Bulseiwcz, Plant based GI doc, the microbiome needs a rest and that TRE has a positive effect on the microbiome.

I'm cherry picking and giving anecdotes, but there's a lot of 30 year old pharmacists having heart attacks and a lot of them are working 12 hour straight without meals.

So.....that means people who sleep for 8 1/2 hours are at high risk?.....

8:46 3000 cal over 12 hours and 25000 cal over

Mic, researchers are not placing enough attention on the gut and heart connection which may not be at all related to cholesterol, artery hardening or even heart disease, and no effect from fats/carbs ratios or whatever. I believe many heart attacks are due to a mechanical/ pressure effect on the heart (you did mention this by passing very briefly). Research Roemheld syndrome as it relates to this.

LMAO!! 7:04 great job Mic

Maybe it the excess cortisol from fasting. Ive been doing this for almost 10 months omg. might have to start eating breakfast again

Since we are on the topic I ate over 6000 calories today and I feel like a god thanks to seed symbiotic!

Hmmmm..... I skip breakfast and eat 2 meals a day. 75% of the time I eat the same thing (for finances and ease) 950 for lunch and 1200 for dinner. Lunch is a protein dring and granola, oats, strawberries and almond milk; Dinner is 1 kg of potatoes and 100 grams of vegan cheese (20 grams of saturated fat). Now I don't know what to think of this...

I can't remember the stats, but there is a major increase in heart attacks on Thanksgiving because of the heavy eating in one meal.

I always thought that it’s the food, exercise and sleep that’s important. Not when you eat. Btw I tried IF for a while. It made me GAIN weight, because I tried unhealthy foods I would never eat otherwise.

A lot of people who do IF eat cheeseburger’s during their 8 hour window! That is probably the reason

I thought algae oil had to be refrigerated 🤔

I feel the difference when I take love complement even though I don’t take it every day.

Thanks for the dissection; seems like the 3 meals a day happened naturally to avoid heavy eating

shorter eating window = binge eating, bigger meals

I wish the peers had reviewed: Dear peers, please review. Thanks. 🙂. Lots to digest in the video, somehow; probably I shall watch it again reducing the speed. Takeaways for now, for me: another caution on skipping breakfast which I do and on balance shall continue to do but thanks for the cautionary reminder; and heavy meals - albeit fibre rich no sos whole food fully plant based ones - which i shall act on. The thing is, I find my cooking, even without salt, so very delicious, that I eat till I'm stuffed. BMI ok but still, shouldn't eat quite so much at one go. Well thanks, a good video which i shall watch again. I did watch and read some reactions to the study report saying it was self reported and standard diet so not that important, so it's good you gave it a fair hearing, so to say.

i think juice fasting is pretty good. Its also a matter of what you are eating to break the fast

The study in question is low grade data of course. But... the other more reliable studies show a very significant trend showing that skipping breakfast and condensing the eating time frame might be causing more harm than good. I normally skip breakfast, but I will change that idea from now on....because the logic is pretty strong. I've known of cases where people have large feasts like Christmas and have died on boxing day, and that danger is also well documented. The body purposely sends people to sleep after a huge meal, so as to preserve energy and avoid strenuous tasks that might potentially blow the system! Speading things out may be a wiser choice.

I don't know how I am able to keep working 8 hours a day. These stats look rough. Man, can't wait until half my co-workers drop off like flies.

This mystified me because I thought the science of intermittent fasting was showing moderate benefits. Hope the researchers go back to examine this issue in a more serious way. Thanks for posting, Mic!

Great video! Thanks! I totally agree. I wake up in the morning and make a big plate of carnivorous vegetables for breakfast, and repeat throughout the day. (fiber is my number one focus and in my world is the (king)