Intermittent fasting may not be a magic solution for effective weight loss, an Israeli health tech startup reports.
Polls have indicated that nearly one-quarter (24%) of US adults have tried intermittent fasting to lose weight, but data engineers at Lumen – which has developed a handheld metabolism tracker – are now seeing that an overwhelming number of their users are experiencing what they call a stress response to fasting too many hours.
Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter
The Luman tracker measures a person's body carbon dioxide concentration, based on a breath sample, and analyzes it to determine if they are burning fats or carbohydrates for fuel.
The Lumen data team looked at over 1 million monthly metabolism measurements from Lumen users and arrived at insights that can help dieters avoid a counteractive stress response, which is what happens when the body overextends its fat-burning state and is triggered to use carbs rather than fat for fuel.
However, the data still supports the benefits of intermittent fasting, if optimized for an individual's needs. According to Lumen, users of its tracker who fasted progressively in an optimized and measured framework were able to achieve fat burn.
"People can reach great results by using fasting as a tool for weight loss and achieving a healthy metabolism, however, optimizing your fasting routine is crucial since each one of us has a different metabolism. Therefore, some will need longer fasting windows than others in order to optimize the result of their fast," says Lumen's head of data Barak Alon.
Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!
