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Randomized trial · measured the question itself

12-month trial in 139 adults: limited eating hours gave no clear extra weight loss

Liu and colleagues · The New England journal of medicine · 2022

Original title: Calorie Restriction with or without Time-Restricted Eating in Weight Loss.

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What the study found

No difference

Weight loss was -8.0 kg with time restricted eating and -6.3 kg with calorie cutting alone. Net difference -1.8 kg (95% CI, -4.0 to 0.4; P = 0.11). Body fat and risk markers matched.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
139 people · adults with obesity
What was tested
eating only 8 am to 4 pm plus calorie cutting, vs calorie cutting alone (same calorie goals), for 12 months
What it measured
The question itself: weight loss, compared with ordinary calorie cutting
How long
52 weeks
Trial registration
NCT03745612
Who has a stake
No disclosure in PubMed
No disclosure in PubMed; funded by Chinese government research funds.
Journal
The New England journal of medicine, 2022
Source
PubMed record 35443107. 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: 139 people.
  • ✓Long: about 1 year.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: weight loss, compared with ordinary calorie cutting.
  • •The PubMed record has no conflict-of-interest statement.
  • •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

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    8

    4 benefit, 3 mixed, 1 no difference

  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 8 papers on the same step: 5 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference. This one found no difference. It differs from most of them.

  • Quoted in “What we found”: Two year-long trials split: a daytime eating window added no clear loss to calorie cutting, while 4:3 fasting lost 2.89 kg more than daily cutting.
  • Part of the finding “Against daily calorie cutting, about the same”.
  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Year-long trial: eating window adds no clear loss.
  • Open item for a person: No COI statement in PubMed for Liu 2022 and Li 2024; Catenacci 2025 only points to online disclosure forms.

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 two reads agreed on every checked field. 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
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