Kiwi vs Lemon – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing kiwi to lemon, we picked the kiwi.

Why?

A fairly straightforward one today!

In terms of macros, kiwi has more protein, carbs, and fiber, the ratio of the latter two also giving it the lower glycemic index. An easy win for kiwi here.

In the category of vitamins, kiwi has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B9, C, E, K, and choline, while lemon has more of vitamins B1 and B6. Yes, that’s right, lemon didn’t even win on the vitamin C that it’s famous for. In any case, a clear 8:2 win for kiwi.

Looking at minerals, kiwi has more calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc, while lemon has more iron and selenium. So, looking at this 7:2 win for kiwi, you might want to reconsider that “glass of lemon water to replenish minerals” trend!

None of this is to knock lemons, by the way; lemons are still a very respectable fruit, nutritionally. Probably very few people are out there eating lemons the way one might eat kiwi…

(writer’s note: I say “very few”, as once upon a time when my son was small, I remember coming into the kitchen to find he had helped himself to lemon wedges and was just eating them, so it can happen. But I also one time when he was just as small, found him drinking hot sauce directly from the bottle, so hey, he clearly already enjoyed strong flavors. Lest I seem a very inattentive mother, I’ll say in my defense that our kitchen has no real toddler-height hazards when the oven is cold, and those items were from the bottom of the fridge, so easy to access if I leave the room for a moment to grab something)

…but what we do want to say here is: if you don’t care for lemons so much, you’re not missing out. If the lemon water isn’t calling to you, you can skip it guilt-free.

In any case, do enjoy either or both, but kiwi’s the clear winner here!

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer ← kiwi is top of the list! It has some cool properties, as you’ll see, killing cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.

Take care!

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  • No, your aches and pains don’t get worse in the cold. So why do we think they do?

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    It’s cold and wet outside. As you get out of bed, you can feel it in your bones. Your right knee is flaring up again. That’ll make it harder for you to walk the dog or go to the gym. You think it must be because of the weather.

    It’s a common idea, but a myth.

    When we looked at the evidence, we found no direct link between most common aches and pains and the weather. In the first study of its kind, we found no direct link between the temperature or humidity with most joint or muscle aches and pains.

    So why are so many of us convinced the weather’s to blame? Here’s what we think is really going on.

    fongbeerredhot/Shutterstock

    Weather can be linked to your health

    The weather is often associated with the risk of new and ongoing health conditions. For example, cold temperatures may worsen asthma symptoms. Hot temperatures increase the risk of heart problems, such as arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), cardiac arrest and coronary heart disease.

    Many people are also convinced the weather is linked to their aches and pains. For example, two in every three people with knee, hip or hand osteoarthritis say cold temperatures trigger their symptoms.

    Musculoskeletal conditions affect more than seven million Australians. So we set out to find out whether weather is really the culprit behind winter flare-ups.

    What we did

    Very few studies have been specifically and appropriately designed to look for any direct link between weather changes and joint or muscle pain. And ours is the first to evaluate data from these particular studies.

    We looked at data from more than 15,000 people from around the world. Together, these people reported more than 28,000 episodes of pain, mostly back pain, knee or hip osteoarthritis. People with rheumatoid arthritis and gout were also included.

    We then compared the frequency of those pain reports between different types of weather: hot or cold, humid or dry, rainy, windy, as well as some combinations (for example, hot and humid versus cold and dry).

    Female construction worker clutching back in pain on worksite on cloudy day
    Bad back on a cold day? We wanted to know if the weather was really to blame. Pearl PhotoPix/Shutterstock

    What we found

    We found changes in air temperature, humidity, air pressure and rainfall do not increase the risk of knee, hip or lower back pain symptoms and are not associated with people seeking care for a new episode of arthritis.

    The results of this study suggest we do not experience joint or muscle pain flare-ups as a result of changes in the weather, and a cold day will not increase our risk of having knee or back pain.

    In order words, there is no direct link between the weather and back, knee or hip pain, nor will it give you arthritis.

    It is important to note, though, that very cold air temperatures (under 10°C) were rarely studied so we cannot make conclusions about worsening symptoms in more extreme changes in the weather.

    The only exception to our findings was for gout, an inflammatory type of arthritis that can come and go. Here, pain increased in warmer, dry conditions.

    Gout has a very different underlying biological mechanism to back pain or knee and hip osteoarthritis, which may explain our results. The combination of warm and dry weather may lead to increased dehydration and consequently increased concentration of uric acid in the blood, and deposition of uric acid crystals in the joint in people with gout, resulting in a flare-up.

    Why do people blame the weather?

    The weather can influence other factors and behaviours that consequently shape how we perceive and manage pain.

    For example, some people may change their physical activity routine during winter, choosing the couch over the gym. And we know prolonged sitting, for instance, is directly linked to worse back pain. Others may change their sleep routine or sleep less well when it is either too cold or too warm. Once again, a bad night’s sleep can trigger your back and knee pain.

    Likewise, changes in mood, often experienced in cold weather, trigger increases in both back and knee pain.

    So these changes in behaviour over winter may contribute to more aches and pains, and not the weather itself.

    Believing our pain will feel worse in winter (even if this is not the case) may also make us feel worse in winter. This is known as the nocebo effect.

    Older woman sitting reading book next to wood fire
    When it’s cold outside, we may be less active. Anna Nass/Shutterstock

    What to do about winter aches and pains?

    It’s best to focus on risk factors for pain you can control and modify, rather than ones you can’t (such as the weather).

    You can:

    • become more physically active. This winter, and throughout the year, aim to walk more, or talk to your health-care provider about gentle exercises you can safely do at home, with a physiotherapist, personal trainer or at the pool
    • lose weight if obese or overweight, as this is linked to lower levels of joint pain and better physical function
    • keep your body warm in winter if you feel some muscle tension in uncomfortably cold conditions. Also ensure your bedroom is nice and warm as we tend to sleep less well in cold rooms
    • maintain a healthy diet and avoid smoking or drinking high levels of alcohol. These are among key lifestyle recommendations to better manage many types of arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. For people with back pain, for example, a healthy lifestyle is linked with higher levels of physical function.

    Manuela Ferreira, Professor of Musculoskeletal Health, Head of Musculoskeletal Program, George Institute for Global Health and Leticia Deveza, Rheumatologist and Research Fellow, University of Sydney

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Health & Happiness From Outside & In

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A friend in need…

    In a recent large (n=3,486) poll across the US:

    • 90% of people aged 50 and older say they have at least one close friend
    • 75% say they have enough close friends
    • 70% of those with a close friend say they can definitely count on them to provide health-related support

    However, those numbers shrink by half when it comes to people whose physical and/or mental health is not so great, resulting in a negative feedback loop of fewer close friends whom one sees less often, and progressively worse physical and/or mental health. In other words, the healthier you are, the more likely you are to have a friend who’ll support you in your health:

    Read in full: Friendships promote healthier living in older adults, says new survey

    Related: How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

    Kindness makes a difference to healthcare outcomes

    Defining kindness as action-oriented, positively focused, and purposeful in nature, this sets kindness apart from compassion and empathy, when it’s otherwise often been conflated with those, and thus overlooked. This also means that kindness can still be effected when clinicians are too burned-out to be compassionate, and/or when patients are not in a state of mind where empathy is useful.

    Furthermore, unkindness (again, as defined by this review) was found in large studies to be the root cause of ¾ of patient harm events in hospital settings. This means that far from being a wishy-washy abstraction, kindness/unkindness can be a very serious factor when it comes to healthcare outcomes:

    Read in full: Review suggests kindness could make for better health care

    Related: The Human Touch vs AI, The Doctor That Never Tires

    The gift of health?

    🎵 Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
    Which turned out to be a silly idea
    This year, to save me from tears
    I’ll just get you a Fitbit or something🎵

    Health & happiness go hand in hand, so does that make health stuff a good gift? It can do! But there are also plenty of opportunities for misfires.

    For example, getting someone a gym membership when they don’t have time for that may not help them at all, and sports equipment that they’ll use once and then leave to gather dust might not be great either. In contrast, the American Heart Association recommends to first consider what they enjoy doing, and work with that, and ideally make it something versatile and/or portable. Wearable gadgets are a fine option for many, but a gift doesn’t have to be fancy to be good—with a blood pressure monitoring cuff being a suggestion from Dr. Sperling (a professor of preventative cardiology):

    Read in full: Oh, there’s no gift like health for the holidays

    Related: Here’s Where Activity Trackers Help (And Also Where They Don’t)

    How you use social media matters more than how much

    A study commissioned by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre found that while the quantity of time one spends on social media is not associated (positively or negatively) with loneliness, they did find a correlation between passive (as opposed to engaged) use of social media, and loneliness. In other words, people who were chatting with friends less, were more lonely! Shocking news.

    While the findings may seem obvious, it does present a call-to-action for anyone who is feeling lonely: to use social media not just to see what everyone else is up to, but also, to reach out to people.

    Read in full: Unpacking the link between social media and loneliness

    Related: Make Social Media Work For Your Mental Health Rather Than Against It

    Gut-only antidepressants

    Many antidepressants work by increasing serotonin levels in the brain; a new study suggests that targeting antidepressants to work only in the gut (which is where serotonin is made, not the brain) could not only be an effective treatment for mood disorders, but also cause fewer adverse side-effects:

    Read in full: Antidepressants may act in gut to reduce depression and anxiety

    Related: Antidepressants: Personalization Is Key!

    Take care!

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  • Hearty Healthy Ukrainian Borscht

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    In the West, borscht is often thought of as Russian, but it is Ukrainian in origin and popular throughout much of Eastern Europe, with many local variations. Today’s borscht is a vegetarian (and vegan, depending on your choice of cooking fat) borscht from Kyiv, and it’s especially good for the gut, heart, and blood sugars.

    You will need

    • 1 quart vegetable stock; ideally you made this yourself from vegetable offcuts you kept in the freezer, but failing that, your supermarket should have low-sodium stock cubes
    • 4 large beets, peeled and cut into matchsticks
    • 1 can white beans (cannellini beans are ideal), drained and rinsed
    • 1 cup sauerkraut
    • 1 large onion, finely chopped
    • 1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
    • 1 large russet potato, peeled and cut into large chunks
    • 3 small carrots, tops removed and cut into large chunks
    • 1 tbsp tomato paste
    • ½ bulb garlic, finely chopped
    • 2 tsp black pepper, coarse ground
    • 1 bunch fresh dill, chopped. If you cannot get fresh, substitute with parsley (1 bunch fresh, chopped, or 1 tbsp dried). Do not use dried dill; it won’t work.
    • A little fat for cooking; this one’s a tricky and personal decision. Butter is traditional, but would make this recipe impossible to cook without going over the recommended limit for saturated fat. Avocado oil is healthy, relatively neutral in taste, and has a high smoke point, though that latter shouldn’t be necessary here if you are attentive with the stirring. Extra virgin olive oil is also a healthy choice, but not as neutral in flavor and does have a lower smoke point. Coconut oil has arguably too strong a taste and a low smoke point. Seed oils are very heart-unhealthy. All in all, avocado oil is a respectable choice from all angles except tradition.
    • On standby: a little vinegar (your preference what kind)

    Salt is conspicuous by its absence, but there should be enough already from the other ingredients, especially the sauerkraut.

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Heat some oil in a large sauté pan (cast iron is perfect if you have it), add the onion and pepper, and stir until the onion is becoming soft.

    2) Add the carrots and beets and stir until they are becoming soft. If you need to add a little more oil, that’s fine.

    3) Add the tomato paste, and stir in well.

    4) Add a little (about ½ cup) of the vegetable stock and stir in well until you get a consistent texture with the tomato paste.

    5) Add the sauerkraut and the rest of the broth, and cook for about 20 minutes.

    6) Add the potatoes and cook for another 10 minutes.

    7) Add the beans and cook for another 5 minutes.

    8) Add the garlic, black pepper, and herbs. Check that everything is cooked (poke a chunk of potato with a fork) and that the seasoning is to your liking. The taste should be moderately sour from the sauerkraut; if it is sweet, you can stir in a little vinegar now to correct that.

    9) Serve! Ukrainian borscht is most often served hot (unlike Lithuanian borscht, which is almost always served cold), but if the weather’s warm, it can certainly be enjoyed cold too:

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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Related Posts

  • Cherries vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?
  • Outsmart Your Pain – by Dr. Christiane Wolf

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Dr. Wolf is a physician turned mindfulness teacher. As such, and holding an MD as well as a PhD in psychosomatic medicine, she knows her stuff.

    A lot of what she teaches is mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), but this book is much more specific than that. It doesn’t promise you won’t continue to experience pain—in all likelihood you will—but it does change the relationship with pain, and this greatly lessens the suffering and misery that comes with it.

    For many, the most distressing thing about pain is not the sensation itself, but how crippling it can be—getting in the way of life, preventing enjoyment of other things, and making every day a constant ongoing exhausting battle… And every night, a “how much rest am I actually going to be able to get, and in what condition will I wake up, and how will I get through tomorrow?” stress-fest.

    Dr. Wolf helps the reader to navigate through all these challenges and more; minimize the stress, maximize the moments of respite, and keep pain’s interference with life to a minimum. Each chapter addresses different psychological aspects of chronic pain management, and each comes with specific mindfulness meditations to explore the new ideas learned.

    The style is personal and profound, while coming from a place of deep professional understanding as well as compassion.

    Bottom line: if you’ve been looking for a life-ring to help you reclaim your life, this one could be it; we wholeheartedly recommend it.

    Click here to check out Outsmart Your Pain, and recover the beauty and joy of life!

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  • The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Take Your Mental Health As Seriously As General Health!

    Sometimes, health and productivity means excelling—sometimes, it means avoiding illness and unproductivity. Both are essential, and today we’re going to tackle some ground-up stuff. If you don’t need it right now, great; we suggest to read it for when and if you do. But how likely is it that you will?

    • One in four of us are affected by serious mental health issues in any given year.
    • One in five of us have suicidal thoughts at some point in our lifetime.
    • One in six of us are affected to at least some extent by the most commonly-reported mental health issues, anxiety and depression, in any given week.

    …and that’s just what’s reported, of course. These stats are from a UK-based source but can be considered indicative generally. Jokes aside, the UK is not a special case and is not measurably worse for people’s mental health than, say, the US or Canada.

    While this is not an inherently cheery topic, we think it’s an important one.

    Depression, which we’re going to focus on today, is very very much a killer to both health and productivity, after all.

    One of the most commonly-used measures of depression is known by the snappy name of “PHQ9”. It stands for “Patient Health Questionnaire Nine”, and you can take it anonymously online for free (without signing up for anything; it’s right there on the page already):

    Take The PHQ9 Test Here! (under 2 minutes, immediate results)

    There’s a chance you took that test and your score was, well, depressing. There’s also a chance you’re doing just peachy, or maybe somewhere in between. PHQ9 scores can fluctuate over time (because they focus on the past two weeks, and also rely on self-reports in the moment), so you might want to bookmark it to test again periodically. It can be interesting to track over time.

    In the event that you’re struggling (or: in case one day you find yourself struggling, or want to be able to support a loved one who is struggling), some top tips that are useful:

    Accept that it’s a medical condition like any other

    Which means some important things:

    • You/they are not lazy or otherwise being a bad person by being depressed
    • You/they will probably get better at some point, especially if help is available
    • You/they cannot, however, “just snap out of it”; illness doesn’t work that way
    • Medication might help (it also might not)

    Do what you can, how you can, when you can

    Everyone knows the advice to exercise as a remedy for depression, and indeed, exercise helps many. Unfortunately, it’s not always that easy.

    Did you ever see the 80s kids’ movie “The Neverending Story”? There’s a scene in which the young hero Atreyu must traverse the “Swamp of Sadness”, and while he has a magical talisman that protects him, his beloved horse Artax is not so lucky; he slows down, and eventually stops still, sinking slowly into the swamp. Atreyu pulls at him and begs him to keep going, but—despite being many times bigger and stronger than Atreyu, the horse just sinks into the swamp, literally drowning in despair.

    See the scene: The Neverending Story movie clip – Artax and the Swamp of Sadness (1984)

    Wow, they really don’t make kids’ movies like they used to, do they?

    But, depression is very much like that, and advice “exercise to feel less depressed!” falls short of actually being helpful, when one is too depressed to do it.

    If you’re in the position of supporting someone who’s depressed, the best tool in your toolbox will be not “here’s why you should do this” (they don’t care; not because they’re an uncaring person by nature, but because they are physiologically impeded from caring about themself at this time), but rather:

    “please do this with me”

    The reason this has a better chance of working is because the depressed person will in all likelihood be unable to care enough to raise and/or maintain an objection, and while they can’t remember why they should care about themself, they’re more likely to remember that they should care about you, and so will go with your want/need more easily than with their own. It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s worth a shot.

    What if I’m the depressed person, though?

    Honestly, the same, if there’s someone around you that you do care about; do what you can to look after you, for them, if that means you can find some extra motivation.

    But I’m all alone… what now?

    Firstly, you don’t have to be alone. There are free services that you can access, for example:

    …which varyingly offer advice, free phone services, webchats, and the like.

    But also, there are ways you can look after yourself a little bit; do the things you’d advise someone else to do, even if you’re sure they won’t work:

    • Take a little walk around the block
    • Put the lights on when you’re not sleeping
    • For that matter, get out of bed when you’re not sleeping. Literally lie on the floor if necessary, but change your location.
    • Change your bedding, or at least your clothes
    • If changing the bedding is too much, change just the pillowcase
    • If changing your clothes is too much, change just one item of clothing
    • Drink some water; it won’t magically cure you, but you’ll be in slightly better order
    • On the topic of water, splash some on your face, if showering/bathing is too much right now
    • Do something creative (that’s not self-harm). You may scoff at the notion of “art therapy” helping, but this is a way to get at least some of the lights on in areas of your brain that are a little dark right now. Worst case scenario is it’ll be a distraction from your problems, so give it a try.
    • Find a connection to community—whatever that means to you—even if you don’t feel you can join it right now. Discover that there are people out there who would welcome you if you were able to go join them. Maybe one day you will!
    • Hiding from the world? That’s probably not healthy, but while you’re hiding, take the time to read those books (write those books, if you’re so inclined), learn that new language, take up chess, take up baking, whatever. If you can find something that means anything to you, go with that for now, ride that wave. Motivation’s hard to come by during depression and you might let many things slide; you might as well get something out of this period if you can.

    If you’re not depressed right now but you know you’re predisposed to such / can slip that way?

    Write yourself instructions now. Copy the above list if you like.

    Most of all: have a “things to do when I don’t feel like doing anything” list.

    If you only take one piece of advice from today’s newsletter, let that one be it!

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  • New research suggests intermittent fasting increases the risk of dying from heart disease. But the evidence is mixed

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Kaitlin Day, RMIT University and Sharayah Carter, RMIT University

    Intermittent fasting has gained popularity in recent years as a dietary approach with potential health benefits. So you might have been surprised to see headlines last week suggesting the practice could increase a person’s risk of death from heart disease.

    The news stories were based on recent research which found a link between time-restricted eating, a form of intermittent fasting, and an increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease, or heart disease.

    So what can we make of these findings? And how do they measure up with what else we know about intermittent fasting and heart disease?

    The study in question

    The research was presented as a scientific poster at an American Heart Association conference last week. The full study hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

    The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a long-running survey that collects information from a large number of people in the United States.

    This type of research, known as observational research, involves analysing large groups of people to identify relationships between lifestyle factors and disease. The study covered a 15-year period.

    It showed people who ate their meals within an eight-hour window faced a 91% increased risk of dying from heart disease compared to those spreading their meals over 12 to 16 hours. When we look more closely at the data, it suggests 7.5% of those who ate within eight hours died from heart disease during the study, compared to 3.6% of those who ate across 12 to 16 hours.

    We don’t know if the authors controlled for other factors that can influence health, such as body weight, medication use or diet quality. It’s likely some of these questions will be answered once the full details of the study are published.

    It’s also worth noting that participants may have eaten during a shorter window for a range of reasons – not necessarily because they were intentionally following a time-restricted diet. For example, they may have had a poor appetite due to illness, which could have also influenced the results.

    Other research

    Although this research may have a number of limitations, its findings aren’t entirely unique. They align with several other published studies using the NHANES data set.

    For example, one study showed eating over a longer period of time reduced the risk of death from heart disease by 64% in people with heart failure.

    Another study in people with diabetes showed those who ate more frequently had a lower risk of death from heart disease.

    A recent study found an overnight fast shorter than ten hours and longer than 14 hours increased the risk dying from of heart disease. This suggests too short a fast could also be a problem.

    But I thought intermittent fasting was healthy?

    There are conflicting results about intermittent fasting in the scientific literature, partly due to the different types of intermittent fasting.

    There’s time restricted eating, which limits eating to a period of time each day, and which the current study looks at. There are also different patterns of fast and feed days, such as the well-known 5:2 diet, where on fast days people generally consume about 25% of their energy needs, while on feed days there is no restriction on food intake.

    Despite these different fasting patterns, systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) consistently demonstrate benefits for intermittent fasting in terms of weight loss and heart disease risk factors (for example, blood pressure and cholesterol levels).

    RCTs indicate intermittent fasting yields comparable improvements in these areas to other dietary interventions, such as daily moderate energy restriction.

    A group of people eating around a table.
    There are a variety of intermittent fasting diets. Fauxels/Pexels

    So why do we see such different results?

    RCTs directly compare two conditions, such as intermittent fasting versus daily energy restriction, and control for a range of factors that could affect outcomes. So they offer insights into causal relationships we can’t get through observational studies alone.

    However, they often focus on specific groups and short-term outcomes. On average, these studies follow participants for around 12 months, leaving long-term effects unknown.

    While observational research provides valuable insights into population-level trends over longer periods, it relies on self-reporting and cannot demonstrate cause and effect.

    Relying on people to accurately report their own eating habits is tricky, as they may have difficulty remembering what and when they ate. This is a long-standing issue in observational studies and makes relying only on these types of studies to help us understand the relationship between diet and disease challenging.

    It’s likely the relationship between eating timing and health is more complex than simply eating more or less regularly. Our bodies are controlled by a group of internal clocks (our circadian rhythm), and when our behaviour doesn’t align with these clocks, such as when we eat at unusual times, our bodies can have trouble managing this.

    So, is intermittent fasting safe?

    There’s no simple answer to this question. RCTs have shown it appears a safe option for weight loss in the short term.

    However, people in the NHANES dataset who eat within a limited period of the day appear to be at higher risk of dying from heart disease. Of course, many other factors could be causing them to eat in this way, and influence the results.

    When faced with conflicting data, it’s generally agreed among scientists that RCTs provide a higher level of evidence. There are too many unknowns to accept the conclusions of an epidemiological study like this one without asking questions. Unsurprisingly, it has been subject to criticism.

    That said, to gain a better understanding of the long-term safety of intermittent fasting, we need to be able follow up individuals in these RCTs over five or ten years.

    In the meantime, if you’re interested in trying intermittent fasting, you should speak to a health professional first.

    Kaitlin Day, Lecturer in Human Nutrition, RMIT University and Sharayah Carter, Lecturer Nutrition and Dietetics, RMIT University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    The Conversation

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