Scientists: 14-hour fasting improves hunger, mood and sleep

Results from the trial are presented today by researchers from King’s at the European Nutrition Conference.

Intermittent fasting (IF), or restricting your food consumption to a set window, is a popular weight loss regime. A ten-hour window means limiting your daily eating schedule to ten hours and fasting for the remaining 14 hours. For example, if you eat your first bite at 9am, you must eat your last bite by 7pm.

Despite some IF advocates commonly promoting restrictive eating windows as low as six hours, findings detailed in the abstract show even eating within a less restrictive window of ten hours still has positive health benefits, such as changes in mood, energy and hunger.

Those who were consistent with their eating window had greater benefits than those who varied their eating window day to day.

Some 37,545 people on the ZOE Health app completed the core intervention period of three weeks. Participants were asked to eat as normal for the first week and then a ten-hour eating window for two weeks.

More than 36,231 participants opted for additional weeks and 27,371 users were classified as highly engaged. Highly engaged participants were 78% female, with a mean age of 60 and a BMI of 25.6.

Participants with a longer eating window before the intervention saw an even greater benefit to their health.