Intermittent Fasting RUINS Pregnancy?

Intermittent fasting is an incredibly popular eating protocol followed by many individuals in a pursuit of losing weight. But in a recent study done, there was some issues related to fertility that might surprise you! Feel free to read in on the article or check out the video above to learn more.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Before to take a look at the study, let’s talk about what intermittent fasting is. Intermittent fasting, otherwise known as time restricted eating, is essentially where you don’t eat during a certain portion of the day, typically beyond your sleeping hours. For example, some people practice intermittent fasting where they only eat from 12pm-8pm, effectively skipping breakfast. Because of this, the individual in the example, is only eating for 8 hours of the day and “intermittently” fasting for the other 16 hours of the day. As you can see, this can be a great way to limit the overall amount of calories you eat during the day, leading to weight loss. Despite the potential benefits for weight loss, if you are trying to have a child, is there really something to be worried about?

New Fasting Study

The most recent fasting study was done actually done in Zebrafish. This study done, had two respective groups of Zebrafish, one doing intermittent fasting, and one that had free reigns on food eating during the day. What was noted in the study was that the groups of Zebrafish, both female and male, had decreased sperm and egg quality, compared to the control groups. This is quite some shocking information, especially for individuals trying to have children. But should you really be concerned?

Application to Humans

Any time a study is done in animals, there should be a HUGE grain of salt that should be applied when to humans. This is because the biology of humans is much different than most animals. This means that diets, exercise, and any type of experiment may lead to different results in humans when compared to animals. On top of this, the study did not note if calories were equated during the study. This is a huge deal when looking at any weight loss or health study. When calories are equated for all diets, typically there is very little differences found in overall weight loss. When individuals are in a calorie deficit, especially much less than what they normally eat, there can be numerous hormonal issues that happen. Bodybuilders that do extreme calorie restriction have much lower hormone levels, such as testosterone, which greatly affect libido and reproduction. This is one of my guesses that might have came out of this study. In the end, it is very interesting, but should be taken with a grain of salt. To take a peek at the article this came from, feel free to visit the link here.

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Before You Leave..

If you want to continue to improve your health and knowledge of the gym, regardless of your current abilities in life, you need to subscribe to our blog. In addition to that, I linked another article below, talking about another recent study on intermittent fasting showing that it might actually might NOT help with weight loss as much as some people think..

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