Research

Hormonal

Intermittent fasting significantly increases adiponectin and decreases leptin levels, which may contribute to improved insulin sensitivity independent of significant fat mass loss.

Fasting may improve your metabolic health markers (like adiponectin) even if the scale doesn't move much, suggesting benefits beyond just weight loss.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Although there was no significant change in fat mass after an IFD, an IFD was associated with an increase in adiponectin level... and a decrease in leptin level
Yongin Cho et al. · Journal of Clinical Medicine · 2019

Why this rating

Meta-analysis data, though fat mass change was not significant.

Source

The Effectiveness of Intermittent Fasting to Reduce Body Mass Index and Glucose Metabolism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Yongin Cho et al. · Journal of Clinical Medicine · 2019

DOI 10.3390/jcm8101645

Meta-analysis · 12 studiesCited 200×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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