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Randomized trial · measured other health measures

5-week trial in 82 adults: body fat fell with early eating window, not mid-day

Xie and colleagues · Nature communications · 2022

Original title: Randomized controlled trial for time-restricted eating in healthy volunteers without obesity.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Mixed

Early window improved insulin sensitivity more than mid-day window. Early window, but not mid-day, reduced total body mass and body fat. No weight numbers in abstract.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
82 people · healthy adults without obesity
What was tested
early eating window or mid-day eating window, vs no restriction (control), for 5 weeks
What it measured
Several kinds of outcomes
How long
5 weeks
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Nature communications, 2022
Source
PubMed record 35194047. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • •Medium size: 82 people.
  • –Short: 5 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • •Measured several kinds of outcomes.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: weight loss

    9

    5 benefit, 2 mixed, 2 no difference

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    8

    4 benefit, 3 mixed, 1 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    1

    1 benefit

  4. Population studies

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does intermittent fasting help with weight loss?”

Yes, but about like calorie cutting.

Confidence: moderate. Based on 26 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 7 papers on the same step: 4 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference. This one found mixed. It differs from most of them.

  • Counted on the ladder, but not quoted in the page’s main findings.

Other papers on the same step

See all 26 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The reviewer corrected 2 fields after reading the abstract. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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