Can Intermittent Fasting Help Reduce Belly Fat?
Many Hollywood stars including Kourtney Kardashian, Jenna Jameson, Hugh Jackman, Justin Theroux and Vanessa Hudgens swear by intermittent fasting to lose weight. But this eating pattern, which involves time-restricted periods of fasting and eating, may not help lose that stubborn belly fat. Because a team of Australian researchers say fat around the stomach are more resistant to intermittent fasting. Belly fat can go into ‘preservation mode’, adapt over time and become more resistant to weight loss, they said in a study published in Cell Reports. Also Read – 5 simple gym ball exercises to lose belly fat effectively
Using a mouse model, the research team led by Dr Mark Larance from the Charles Perkins Centre and School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney has demonstrated the changes fat tissue undergoes during intermittent fasting. They examined fat tissue types from different locations to understand the effect of every-other-day fasting, where no food was consumed on alternate days. Both visceral fat, which is fat tissue surrounding our organs including the stomach, and subcutaneous fat, which lies just under the skin and is associated with better metabolic health, were found to undergo dramatic changes during intermittent fasting. Also Read – Brown fat may protect you against cardiac, metabolic conditions: How is it different from white fat?
Excerpted from The Health Site
