Intermittent fasting could boost weight loss, study finds

BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA — Time-restricted eating, also known as intermittent fasting, may help curb someone's appetite, according to new research in the journal Obesity.

Eleven overweight participants took part in the study. They tried two different eating patterns over a four-day period.

One group of participants ate over a six-hour period between 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. While the second group ate over a 12 hour period between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Those taking part were told to eat the same number of calories every day.

On the fourth day of the experiment, the participants were put inside a respiratory chamber. From there, researchers measured their metabolism by checking the amount of calories, carbs, fat and protein burned.

According to Today, the researchers also tested to see how hungry or full the participants felt by checking their ghrelin hormones. This is the hormone associated with hunger.

The study found that those who were fasting for 18 hours a day had decreased ghrelin levels, lower appetites and increased fullness levels.

The study noted that intermittent fasting appeared to induce weight-loss by decreasing the appetite rather than burning more calories.