Martin was kind enough to send me the full-text of the Ramadan fasting study I recently wrote about. It turns out the subjects did lose lean mass, though the difference didn't turn out to be statistically significant. What I don't like though, is how they played with the numbers to make the fat loss significant. Here's a table from the study:
Total weight went down by 1.8 kgs, and lean mass dropped by 1.1 kgs. However, they chose to measure the change in fat mass by a percentage rather than in absolute numbers, and this percentage decrease turned out to be significant. If they would have assessed changes in fat mass the same as they did lean mass, then I suspect the change in fat mass would be insignificant as well.
I am a little skeptical of this study now, after reading through the full-text. Yes, the fasting did not alter the hormonal axis (which is good), but there was a loss in lean mass (which is never a good thing). Calorie intake dropped by over 1,000 calories a day during Ramadan, and protein was faily low during this stage with an average of 83 grams per day. Perhaps a higher protein intake could have prevented the drop in lean mass that occurred.
