as they normally would whenever they liked.
During time-restricted eating, participants wound up with normal blood sugar levels an average of 15 hours a day, compared to an average 12 hours daily when they ate whenever they wanted.
RELATED: Intermittent Fasting & Diabetes: Does It Work?
Is fasting safe for diabetics?
Now, an important question probably comes to your mind. Is fasting safe for me?
Well, according to the study, the 10-hour eating window proved safe for the participants, who didn’t experience any significant increase in hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) or other serious side effects when they fasted.
“It really tells us that intermittent fasting is potentially safe,” Srinath says. “That’s something that always comes to mind. When patients come to me, they ask, is it safe for me? Is there a greater risk of hypoglycemia? And from this study, they did use glucose monitoring and they did find that sugars were improved overall. More patients achieved normal blood sugar levels and that is a great outcome.”
While getting into a new eating routine may take some getting use to, you should be able to adjust rather quickly. You may even find that intermittent fasting isn’t as challenging as you initially thought.
In fact, the participants wound up naturally falling into a 9-hour food intake window, an hour less than they were allowed, the study reports.
“Mostly, participants reported that they found the time-restricted eating regimen doable,” Andriessen says. “The most critical moments were during the weekend when they weren’t allowed to eat or drink something (other than water) at parties or other social gatherings.”
RELATED: 4 Ways Intermittent Fasting Can Improve Your Health
What happens when you fast
There are solid biological reasons to think that intermittent fasting would help better control diabetes, Srinath adds.
“When you fast, your body first breaks down glycogen stores, which is basically sugar stored in the body,” Srinath shares. “And then when those glycogen stores are gone, the body’s forced to break down fats. The idea is that when you are fasting for long periods of time, there is greater efficiency” in how your body utilizes stored energy.
Both the safety and the success of this intermittent fasting plan might be explained by the fact that it wasn’t