The Effect of Fasting on Cardiovascular Diseases: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Among the leading causes of morbidity, disability, and death worldwide are cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Their risk factors usually include a variety of factors associated with cardiometabolic disorders. Many public health organizations prioritize the prevention of CVDs and encourage people to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It has been shown that fasting and a healthy diet can promote weight loss and improve cardiometabolic health in various animal species. We want to know the impact of fasting on CVDs. The topic is examined in this systematic review. We looked through a wide range of online sources, including PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar, to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that looked into the connection between CVDs and fasting. We included human research that has been published in English in peer-reviewed publications in the last five years, and then we screened by the title, abstract, and full-text accessibility. We picked the final 10 articles for quality assessment using Cochrane Collaboration's tool for risk-of-bias assessment of RCTs. The findings suggest that fasting is beneficial in lowering the cardiovascular risk of a population. This result holds for all types of fasting used as an intervention in the clinical trials we reviewed. The result is pronounced when fasting regimens are combined with a regular exercise routine. More comprehensive data will come from larger-scale clinical trials and case-control studies, and a thorough examination of all the potential health impacts of fasting is warranted.