Medicine› Physiology› Dietary Effects on Health

Nutrition and cognition — 16:8 time-restricted eating (intermittent fasting)

Submitted 2026-10-22

Field: Medicine › PhysiologyType: No effect foundArea: nutrition and cognitionTarget: 16:8 time-restricted eating (intermittent fasting)Stage: full study

Hypothesis

Two months of 16-hour daily time-restricted eating would improve cognitive function, mood and sleep quality in healthy people, as popular claims for intermittent fasting hold.

What failed

With 76 fasting and 29 control volunteers measured at baseline, one month and two months on attention, memory, working memory, executive function, sleep quality and eight mood dimensions, there were no significant group-by-time interactions on any measure.

Broken assumption

Time-restricted eating improves cognition, mood and sleep in healthy people, not just body weight.

Why

The authors conclude the results do not support the claim; they note the design was open-label and that weight regulation by such diets is a separate, better-supported claim.

From the published paper: Batorek et al. Journal of Trial and Error, 2024. ↗CC BY

Research ideas from this failure

Unvetted lead — read the papers

New hypotheses this failure suggests, each with a crucial experiment, a rival explanation of the original result, and the papers it rests on. Written by AI from paper titles and abstracts found on OpenAlex (and Europe PMC, for life and health sciences).

Related failures (1)

Matched on shared genes, mechanisms and ways of failing as well as wording. Each shows why it matched — treat these as leads rather than verdicts.

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In 34 patients randomized for 28 days, there were no significant between-group differences in any sleep-diary measure: total sleep time, sleep efficiency, sleep latency, wake after sleep onset, sleep quality or number of awakenings. Effect sizes were small to moderate, and total sleep time favoured placebo.
Why it matched: similar wording · mechanism: Circadian & sleep

Links in published research

Where this experiment's genes are known to matter outside its own research area, and the papers behind those links. Sources: Open Targets Platform and Europe PMC.