91% more heart deaths? That stat made waves in 2024. It still doesn’t hold up.
Let’s rewind.
Back in 2024, headlines were screaming about a study that claimed intermittent fasting could raise your risk of dying from heart disease by a whopping 91%.
Media outlets latched onto that number like it was gospel. Instagram health influencers panicked. Anti-fasting critics had a field day.
But guess what?
It’s been over a year, and those of us who fast daily? We’re still standing. Stronger, lighter, sharper.
Not only that, there’s been no credible follow-up, no published paper, and no real-world evidence that the sky is falling.
So let’s rip this thing apart, once and for all.
By the way, I break down studies like this weekly, not to scare you, but to help you think for yourself.
If you want the raw, unfiltered version of health science that doesn’t baby you or bore you to death, I’ll send it straight to your inbox.
The Study Everyone Quoted… Then Quietly Forgot
The study made its debut in March 2024 at a cardiology conference.
Not a journal, not a peer-reviewed medical database — a conference.
Which means no one vetted it. No one reviewed its methods. No one checked its math. It was a flashy PowerPoint with a scary number.
And the media, being the media, went berserk.
“91% increased cardiovascular death risk from eating in an 8-hour window.”
Sounds terrifying — until you read the fine print.
Oh, wait, there was no fine print.
Because the full study never came out. Not in any major journal. Not in any peer-reviewed format. Not even in some obscure publication that no one reads.
Just… silence.
You’d think if they had something real, they’d publish it. They didn’t.
They Called It ‘Fasting’ — But It Was Just Two Random Days
Here’s the part that made me laugh out loud: their entire classification of “time-restricted eating” was based on two self-reported days where participants said they ate all their food within 8 hours.
Not two weeks.
Not a 90-day protocol.
Just two random days. Non-consecutive. Completely unverified.
That’s not a fasting routine. That’s skipping a meal because you were busy. That’s eating early because you had plans.
There’s no way anyone serious about health research thinks that qualifies as intermittent fasting.
But that’s what they built their claims on. Which makes the 91% figure feel less like science and more like sensationalism.
Self-Reported Data Is Always Suspect
Let me say this clearly: people lie about food.
Not maliciously, always — but human memory is garbage when it comes to logging meals. Especially when it’s tied to surveys like NHANES, where this data came from.
People forget.
They round things off.
They skip the embarrassing stuff.
They fudge the timing.
That’s why high-quality nutrition research relies on controlled tracking, follow-ups, and verified logs.
This study used none of that. It was basically a glorified guessing game with a scary number slapped on top.
Key Data Was Missing — Which Should’ve Killed the Hype
Now here’s where it really falls apart.
They didn’t tell us the age of participants. Their health status. Their medication use. Their weight trends. Their activity levels. What kind of food they ate. What kind of lifestyle they lived. None of that.
It’s like saying “smoking causes cancer” without asking who smoked what, how often, or whether they were also breathing in asbestos daily.
If you’re going to scare the public, you’d better isolate your variables.
This study didn’t.
It dumped everyone into one bucket and tried to make a causal claim off coincidence.
They Ignored What the People Ate
This one’s personal.
You can’t judge intermittent fasting without looking at diet quality. Period.
An 8-hour eating window filled with Oreos, soda, and microwave burritos isn’t the same as a high-protein, nutrient-dense, clean diet inside that same window.
Timing matters — but content matters more.
Yet this study didn’t account for what people ate. Only when.
That’s like studying gym injuries without checking if the person was deadlifting with a rounded back. Context matters — and this research ignored it completely.
No Mechanism, No Explanation, No Logic
Let’s pretend for a second the 91% stat was somehow accurate.
Where’s the biological explanation?
Where’s the mechanism?
Where’s the inflammation data, the lipid profiles, the glucose markers?
You’re telling me fasting — which lowers insulin, improves blood pressure, and enhances autophagy — increases heart death, but you can’t explain how? Not even a theory?
That’s not science. That’s noise.
And it doesn’t line up with what thousands of controlled studies and real-world fasters have shown us: IF improves, not destroys, cardiovascular health.
Here’s What This Means for You
Let’s bring it back to the ground.
If you’re fasting consistently and tracking your own data, you are the control group that matters.
Are your labs improving?
Is your weight stabilizing?
Are you feeling stronger, clearer, more focused?
Then forget the headlines.
I don’t care if a study says fasting is the new plague — if your actual health markers are trending up, you’re on the right path. Fasting is not a magic bullet, but it’s a tool. And tools need to be used properly, with consistency and awareness.
Talk of tracking consistently, you actually need a tracker that can do that.
That’s why I built the Smart Intermittent Fasting Tracker that gives real-time weight loss projections, logs all your metrics(fasting hours, calories, water, energy, meals, journals), gives you personalized insights, real-time feedback, and adaptive goals to stay on track.
Because if you’re not tracking, you’re guessing. And guessing gets you nowhere.
Final Word: Let the Critics Talk, You Keep Doing the Work
This 2024 study tried to knock intermittent fasting off the table.
It failed.
And a year later, it hasn’t been published, peer-reviewed, or backed up.
That says everything.
So no, thanks, I’m not tossing out a protocol that’s helped thousands of people reverse insulin resistance, drop dangerous belly fat, and rebuild metabolic health because of two random self-reported days and a PowerPoint presentation.
Keep fasting. Keep tracking. Keep paying attention to your results.
Because one year later, we’re not just alive — we’re thriving.
