Research

Hormonal

Intermittent energy restriction (IER) significantly reduces fasting insulin levels compared to continuous energy restriction (CER), although the clinical relevance is uncertain.

IER may offer a slight advantage in lowering fasting insulin compared to daily restriction, which could be beneficial for metabolic health. However, since weight loss is the same, do not expect dramatic changes in body composition solely from this hormonal shift.

GoodQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
A slight reduction in fasting insulin concentrations was evident with IER regimens (WMD − 0.89 µU/mL; 95% CI − 1.56 to − 0.22; p = 0.009), but the clinical relevance of this result is uncertain.
Iolanda Cioffi et al. · Journal of Translational Medicine · 2018

Why this rating

Meta-analysis of 11 RCTs, robust sensitivity analysis, but clinical significance is ambiguous.

Source

Intermittent versus continuous energy restriction on weight loss and cardiometabolic outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Iolanda Cioffi et al. · Journal of Translational Medicine · 2018

DOI 10.1186/s12967-018-1748-4

Meta-analysis · 11 studiesCited 192×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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