Intermittent fasting is popular. However, you should not expect to lose weight unless you also restrict your caloric intake. But there are still many important health benefits to intermittent fasting.

Not eating anything for 16 or 18 hours every day. Or not eating anything for two days a week. These are typical examples of popular intermittent fasting protocols, often followed by people who want to lose weight. The idea is that the body begins to tap into its fat stores when it doesn’t receive food during the fasting period, resulting in weight loss over time.

“There are indeed many health benefits to intermittent fasting, but fasting itself does not lead to significant weight loss”, says Philip Ruppert, a postdoc at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, where he studies the body’s energy metabolism and has a particular interest in ketogenesis; the state where the body burns fat instead of carbohydrates.

Together with Sander Kersten, a professor at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, he has authored a review article summarizing and discussing existing research on metabolic processes such as ketogenesis and fatty acid oxidation that come into play during fasting. The article is published in Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism and can be seen here.