Written by Fatima Yasser
Saturday, March 04, 2023 11:00 PM
Nutrition researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago studied 80 people with diabetes fatty liver Not caused by drinking alcohol and found that those who followed a different day fasted diet and exercised were able to improve their health.
The researchers published their findings in Cell Metabolism, where they reported that over a three-month period, people who exercised and alternated eating, fasting and eating without restriction one day and eating 500 calories or fewer the next saw an increase in In insulin sensitivity and decreased liver fat, weight and ALT, or alanine transaminase enzymes, which are markers of liver disease.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is a build-up of fat and inflammation in patients who drink little or no alcohol. Approximately 65% of obese adults have this disease, and this condition is strongly linked to the development of insulin resistance. and type 2 diabetes. If left unchecked, fatty liver disease can lead to more serious complications such as cirrhosis or liver failure, but there are limited good drug options for treating this condition.
Study author Krista Varady described the results as “absolutely astounding.” Varady, a professor of nutrition at the College of Applied Sciences, said that when we compared the results of our study groups, we clearly found that the most improved patients were in the group that followed the alternate daily fasting system and exercised five days a week, and the subjects Those who dieted or just exercised did not see the same improvements, reinforcing the importance of these two relatively inexpensive lifestyle modifications to overall health and combating chronic diseases such as fatty liver disease.
The participants in the clinical trial were randomly selected into one of four groups, an alternate day fasting group, an aerobic exercise group, a combined group and a control group, in which the participants did not make any changes to their behaviors. The elliptical machine exercises in Faraday’s lab for one hour, five days a week.
The study did not test whether alternate-day fasting was better or worse than other diets when combined with exercise, Varadi said, but she was surprised to see so few participants who dropped out of the study.
And it can be difficult for people to adhere to alternate-day fasting and exercise interventions, and in previous studies we’ve seen significant dropouts, Faraday said. It was very interesting to see that in this trial we had a very high adherence to the interventions, and he believes that carrying out the study at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 could be a plausible explanation for the difference.
In addition to seeing improved metabolic indicators, the study authors also note that there were no serious safety events during the trial, and patients were able to safely maintain diet and exercise for the three-month study, which Faraday believes is an indication that the intervention may be A good option for people with fatty liver disease who want to improve their health without the use of medications, which can have side effects.
In their paper, “Effect of alternate day fasting combined with aerobic exercise on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a randomized controlled trial, the first study to examine the effect of intermittent fasting combined with aerobic exercise on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease outcomes,” the authors write, findings that We also found that a combination intervention was effective for reducing body weight, fat mass, waist circumference, ALT, fasting insulin, insulin resistance, and increasing insulin sensitivity, among patients with obesity and NAFLD, versus the control group.
