What’s the difference between time restricted eating and intermittent fasting? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Cutting short the number of hours during the day when you consume food seems like it should result in weight loss, but that didn’t pan out in a recent study by Nisa Maruthur and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, where so called time restricted eating did not seem to help. Maruthur explains how the idea gained traction.

Maruthur: The rodent studies were so promising making their timing of eating consistent with their circadian rhythm those preclinical studies were really strong. It's hard to disentangle time restriction eating from intermittent fasting because by restricting when you eat you’re fasting, however, the intermittent fasting protocols test fasting that's much more extreme. Taking a whole day off, so it's slightly different, so I can't say that our study says anything about that exactly but certainly we had a difference in six hours of fasting and that didn't seem to matter.     :29

Maruthur says the best plan to lose weight is one that works for you, taking into account health conditions like type 2 diabetes that will have an impact on weight loss efforts, as well as a careful look at your current dietary habits. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.