Comparing Intermittent Fasting, Clean Ketogenic Diet, and Their Combined Effects on Body Composition, Cardiometabolic Markers, and Metabolic Health

Overview

A cross-study analysis combined data from two sequential pre-post intervention studies conducted at the University of Tennessee at Martin, yielding a three-arm design comprising intermittent fasting alone (n = 16), clean ketogenic diet alone (n = 22), and combined clean ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting (n = 41). The clean ketogenic diet restricted carbohydrate intake to 20 grams per day from whole unprocessed sources and eliminated refined sugars, high-fructose corn syrup, and ultra-processed foods.

The intermittent fasting protocol employed a 16:8 time-restricted eating window. Paired-samples t-tests examined within-group pre-to-post changes. One-way analyses of variance with Tukey post-hoc comparisons examined between-group differences in magnitude of change. Effect sizes are reported as Hedges' g for within-group comparisons and eta-squared for between-group comparisons. An independent samples t-test compared glycosylated hemoglobin changes between the intermittent fasting and combined groups. Spearman and Kendall correlations examined associations between fat mass and cardiometabolic change.

Conditions