Background: Overweight and obesity among adults are a growing global public health threat and an essential risk factor for various noncommunicable diseases. Although intermittent fasting is a generally new dietary approach to weight management that has been increasingly practiced worldwide, the effectiveness of 2 days per week dry fasting remains unclear.
Objective: The Cardiometabolic and Anthropometric Outcomes of Intermittent Fasting study aims to determine the cardiometabolic, anthropometric, dietary intake, and quality of life changes among civil servants with overweight and obesity, following combined intermittent fasting and healthy plate (IFHP) and healthy plate (HP) and explore the participants' experiences.
Methods: We designed a mixed methods quasi-experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of the IFHP and HP methods among adults with overweight and obesity. A total of 177 participants were recruited for this study, of which 91 (51.4%) were allocated to the IFHP group and 86 (48.6%) to the HP group. The intervention comprised 2 phases: supervised (12 weeks) and unsupervised (12 weeks). Data collection was conducted at baseline, after the supervised phase (week 12), and after the unsupervised phase (week 24). Serum and whole blood samples were collected from each participant for analysis. Data on sociodemographic factors, quality of life, physical activity, and dietary intake were also obtained using questionnaires during data collection.
Results: Most of the participants were female (147/177, 83.1%) and Malay (141/177, 79.7%). The expected outcomes of this study are changes in body weight, body composition, quality of life, physical activity, dietary intake, and cardiometabolic parameters such as fasting blood glucose, 2-hour postprandial blood glucose, hemoglobin A1c, fasting insulin, and lipid profile.
Conclusions: The Cardiometabolic and Anthropometric Outcomes of Intermittent Fasting study is a mixed methods study to evaluate the effectiveness of combined IFHP and HP interventions on cardiometabolic and anthropometric parameters and explore participants' experiences throughout the study.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05034653; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05034653.
International registered report identifier (irrid): RR1-10.2196/33801.
Keywords: dry fasting; healthy plate; intermittent fasting; obesity; overweight.
©Shazana Rifham Abdullah, Nur Hayati Azizul, Ruziana Mona Wan Mohd Zin, Nur Suffia Sulaiman, Norhayati Mustafa Khalid, Roshan Jahn Mohd Salim Mullahi Jahn, Muhamad Khairul Nazrin Khalil, Norhashimah Abu Seman, Nur Azlin Zainal Abidin, Azizan Ali, You Zhuan Tan, Azahadi Omar, Mohammad Zabri Johari, Nur Shahida Abdul Aziz, Azli Baharudin, Zamtira Seman, Norazizah Ibrahim Wong, Mona Lisa Md Rasip, Hayati Mohd Yusof, Mohd Fairulnizal Md Noh. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (https://www.researchprotocols.org), 05.08.2022.