Reacción a "Reactions: A preliminary investigation presented at a conference claims that restricting meals to an 8-hour window increases the risk of cardiovascular death by 91%"

This report is a conference presentation and lacks the detail of a full paper to be able to assess the quality of the research.  It appears to show the risk of death over a range of 1-13 years, median of 8 years, looking at how people ate on two days, which were linked to risk of cardiovascular disease and death.  Although a model was used to assess risk, it is unclear if it included how healthy diet pattern was or even what people ate.  As the information is limited it is not clear from the available information if smoking, physical activity and alcohol were considered as variables.

It is impossible to say if how a person restricts the time that they eat is linked to risk of health outcome as this abstract is suggesting – as it is unclear, as the data is so limited based on two days of diet recall, why they might have been restricting the time over which they ate.  Some people might be doing this for health reasons, whilst others due to stressful work environments or poverty, which are both risk factors for cardiovascular death.

We need to be very careful not to generate concerning headlines and stories based on such limited information.  It is perhaps what you eat and your overall lifestyle that is more important than if you ate all your food in less than 8 hours on two days in the last decade.