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Fasting no great weight-loss plan

People who fast every other day will not necessarily lose more weight than dieters who cut calories in other ways, a US study suggests.

Fasting regimens that involve alternate-day calorie restriction have become increasingly popular, in part because some people struggle to shed weight by conventional diets focused on counting calories every single day, the research team noted in JAMA Internal Medicine.

For the study, researchers randomly assigned 100 obese adults to three groups.

One group stuck to their normal eating habits for a year.

The two other groups reduced their calorie intake, either by fasting every other day or by cutting back daily, but by a less extreme amount.

Both dieting groups cut back on similar amounts of calories overall.

At the end of the year, the fasting group did lose more weight than the other dieters, but the difference was not big enough to rule out the possibility that it was due to chance.

- REUTERS

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