Metabolic and molecular framework for the enhancement of endurance by intermittent food deprivation.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Animal research (rodent study) with no human data
PubMed 29485903 · doi:10.1096/fj.201701378RR
What was done
Male mice were randomly assigned to either ad libitum feeding or alternate-day food deprivation (ADF). Half of the mice in each diet group underwent daily treadmill endurance training for 1 month. At the end of the intervention, mice performed a run-to-exhaustion endurance test. Outcomes assessed included maximal oxygen consumption, respiratory exchange ratio (RER) during running and fasting days, gene expression in liver and soleus muscle tissues, and blood metabolomic profiles.
What was found
The abstract does not report numerical values, exact sample sizes, or confidence intervals. Treadmill-trained mice maintained on ADF demonstrated superior run-to-exhaustion endurance compared to treadmill-trained mice fed ad libitum. Maximal oxygen consumption increased similarly with training in both diet groups. Mice on ADF demonstrated a lower respiratory exchange ratio on food-deprivation days and during exercise. Molecular and metabolomic analyses showed altered pathways related to mitochondrial biogenesis, cellular plasticity, and substrate metabolism.
Why it matters
The findings illustrate a potential cellular and metabolic mechanism by which periodic energy restriction may augment exercise-induced endurance adaptations and promote fatty acid oxidation.
Limits
The experiment was conducted entirely in male mice, limiting direct generalizability to human athletes or clinical populations. The abstract omits sample sizes, specific run times, effect sizes, and statistical variance. Female animals were not evaluated, and potential adverse effects of combining food deprivation with daily training were not detailed in the abstract.
Cited by
- supports Mice undergoing treadmill training combined with alternate-day fasting for two months demonstrated statistically significantly superior running endurance compared to mice undergoing treadmill training on a normal diet.
- supports Treadmill exercise in alternate-day fasted mice increased blood ketone levels nearly twice as much as fasting alone.
- supports Combining alternate-day fasting with treadmill exercise produces a greater increase in soleus muscle mitochondria count in mice than either intervention alone.