[groos]

In a couple of days ~2 billion people world-wide will begin intermittent fasting, done from dawn to sunset, for a month, which is one of the components of the month of Ramadan. Nobody does this to lose weight, or even changes their diet, yet everyone loses some weight. 5lb is typical. Most people who fast Ramadan also gain it back afterward because they didn't make any changes to their diet, which points to the effectiveness of intermittent fasting to lose weight.

There is one difference between Ramadan fasting and modern intermittent fasting: Ramadan fasts are 'dry' fasts no water is imbibed and the alimentary canal stays completely unstimulated for long periods of time.

[bulbar]

You don't lose less/more weight if you have the same calories input without intermittent fasting. That's well established and the study doesn't show anything surprising.

However, there's more than weight. I wonder if Ramadan has a lasting impact on blood sugar stability, for example.