Influence of Intermittent Fasting on Circulating Inflammatory and Oxidative Stress Markers in Obese Individuals: A Review

Abstract

Background Obesity entails low-grade chronic inflammation and oxidative stress, which result in metabolic disorders, such as insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. These risks can be alleviated by dietary interventions that inhibit inflammatory and oxidative stress. Intermittent fasting (IF) is one of these strategies that are alternating feeding and fasting.

Material and Methods: PubMed and MEDLINE based systematic literature search was performed on human clinical trials, meta-analyses and narrative reviews published within 15 years. The keywords were used as follows: intermittent fasting, time-restricted feeding, alternate-day fasting, obesity, inflammation, CRP, TNF-a, oxidative stress, 8-isoprostane, malondialdehyde. Articles that included obese or overweight adults with a measure of circulating inflammatory (CRP, IL-6, TNF-a or oxidative stress (malondialdehyde, 8-isoprostane, catalase) were identified.

Findings: It has been shown that intermittent fasting can lead to a drop in some pro-inflammatory factors- TNF-a and C-reactive protein (CRP) reduction have been observed (1,2). The evidence of the improvement of the oxidative stress markers (e.g., the decrease in malondialdehyde, increases in catalase activity, etc.) in the overweight/obese groups is also emerging (3). The findings are however heterogeneous, especially of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and other markers and most of the trials are short term or small-scale trials.

Conclusion: The intermittent fasting can be considered a promising non-pharmacological intervention to reduce systemic inflammation and oxidative stress in obese patients, which may be the cause of other metabolic issues. However, further, more rigorous, better-powered trials are needed to elucidate best regimens and mechanistic circuits. .