AHA

AHA 2024: Intermittent fasting linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death

March 20, 2024

An analysis of over 20,000 U.S. adults found that those who limited their eating across less than 8 hours per day, a time-restricted eating plan, were more likely to die from CV disease compared with those who ate across 12 to 16 hours per day. The preliminary research was presented at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology and Prevention │ Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Scientific Sessions 2024, March 18-21, in Chicago.

“Overall, this study suggests that time-restricted eating may have short-term benefits but long-term adverse effects. When the study is presented in its entirety, it will be interesting and helpful to learn more of the details of the analysis,” said Christopher D. Gardner, Ph.D., FAHA, the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford University in Stanford, California, and chair of the writing committee for the AHA’s 2023 scientific statement, Popular Dietary Patterns: Alignment with American Heart Association 2021 Dietary Guidance.

Many people who follow a time-restricted diet follow a 16:8 eating schedule, where they eat all their foods in an 8-hour window and fast for the remaining 16 hours each day, the researchers noted. Previous research has found that time-restricted eating improves several cardiometabolic health measures, such as blood pressure, blood glucose and cholesterol levels, but until now, the long-term health impact of intermittent fasting hasn't been studied.

Researchers reviewed information about dietary patterns for participants in the annual 2003-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) in comparison to data about people who died in the U.S., from 2003 through December 2019, from the CDC’s National Death Index database.

Key study takeaways

• People who followed a pattern of eating all of their food across less than 8 hours per day had a 91% higher risk of death due to cardiovascular disease.
• The increased risk of cardiovascular death was also seen in people living with heart disease or cancer.
• Among people with existing cardiovascular disease, an eating duration of no less than 8 but less than 10 hours per day was also associated with a 66% higher risk of death from heart disease or stroke.
• Time-restricted eating did not reduce the overall risk of death from any cause.
• An eating duration of more than 16 hours per day was associated with a lower risk of cancer mortality among people with cancer.
• The study included approximately 20,000 adults in the U.S. with an average age of 49 years and included data for NHANES participants who were at least 20 years old at enrollment, between 2003-2018, and had completed two 24-hour dietary recall questionnaires within the first year of enrollment.
• Participants were followed for a median length of 8 years and maximum length of 17 years.
• Approximately half of the participants self-identified as men, and half self-identified as women.
• 73.3% of the participants self-identified as non-Hispanic White adults, 11% self-identified as Hispanic adults, 8% self-identified as non-Hispanic Black adults and 6.9% of adults self-identified as another racial category, including mixed-race adults and adults of other non-Hispanic races.
• The study’s limitations included its reliance on self-reported dietary information, which may be affected by participants' memory or recall and may not accurately assess typical eating patterns.

Source:

(2024, March 18). American Heart Association. Epidemiology and Prevention | Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2024, Abstract P192. 8-hour time-restricted eating linked to a 91% higher risk of cardiovascular death. https://newsroom.heart.org/news/8-hour-time-restricted-eating-linked-to-a-91-higher-risk-of-cardiovascular-death