As a big fan of IF, I find this really depressing.

  • Factors that may also play a role in health, outside of daily duration of eating and cause of death, were not included in the analysis.

    So could be that people with higher risk already had higher risk before changing their eating. Sounds likely since IF is frequently used as a diet. Limitations they mentioned also included self-reported data, which is notoriously bad when it comes to diet.

    Honestly, it sounds like it’s not a very useful study. So don’t get too depressed on account of this.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      So could be that people with higher risk already had higher risk before changing their eating. Sounds likely since IF is frequently used as a diet.

      I like this explanation.

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      That sounds like a plausible explanation, but there’s no way to know because there’s no data. As you said, this study is kinda useless.

      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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        8 months ago

        Not useless, this correlation was totally unexpected, they were expecting to see a benefit. It’s not definitive though, but retrospective reviews like this are important first steps even though they carry many caveats. Now this data could be used as justification for funding and grants for further prospective studies into this to better quantify risks and benefits of intermittent fasting.