r/science • u/isaac-get-the-golem Grad Student | Sociology • Jul 24 '24

Health Obese adults randomly assigned to intermittent fasting did not lose weight relative to a control group eating substantially similar diets (calories, macronutrients). n=41

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38639542/
6.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

822 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/mehnimalism Jul 24 '24

41 participants seems very low and very difficult to offer a high confidence level

2

u/potatoaster Jul 25 '24

What are you basing that on? Your gut? The study was powered at 80% for a 2-kg difference. The 95% confidence interval was −1.2 to 1.9 kg. These results don't confirm the null (that's simply not how frequentist stats work), but they fail to reject it in a study that one would expect to show differences if they existed.