10 Potential Intermittent Fasting Side Effects

Intermittent Fasting is a specific eating pattern that follows regular periods of fasting. Intermittent fasting is a diet plan that has many patterns. Fasting includes less eating and drinking within the given time limit. This thing helps lower the number of calories. Intermittent fasting is beneficial in many aspects but it also causes many side effects such as fatigue, low energy, sleep disturbance, headaches, mood issues and greater hunger. If you don’t follow the correct rules, you also may experience malnutrition.

This doesn’t mean that you start ignoring the beneficial impacts of intermittent fasting because this diet plan has a great impact on your health and helps improve blood sugar and insulin sensitivity, lower blood pressure along with the decreased risk of stress and heart diseases. It also helps lower your blood pressure.  Therefore, ignoring useful health benefits of intermittent fatigue is not wise. 

However, it is also true that intermittent fasting is not beneficial for all. This pattern of eating and drinking has many side effects.

This article will help you learn more about the side effects of intermittent fasting. 

Positive Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Your Health

Intermittent fasting turns your body into a fuel-burning machine that activates cellular cleaning (autophagy). But your system of eating and drinking that is associated with your metabolism for years do not accept this eating style readily and cause hurdles. Therefore, your host experiences growing pains due to switching to other fuel sources. The discomfort makes you an offender initially. 

Common health benefits associated with intermittent fatigue have been noted below:

• Helps in weight loss.
• Improves insulin sensitivity.
• Improves blood sugar control.
• Decreases risk factors for heart disease.
• Lowers the blood pressure.
• Reduces the markers of oxidative stress.

As soon as people learn about the health benefits of intermittent fasting, they adopt this diet plan readily. Thus it has become a popular type of fasting. Intermittent fasting is of different types, such as:

• Periodic fasting.
• Time-restricted feeding (TRF).
• Alternate-day fasting (ADF).

Negative Impacts of Intermittent Fasting

Although intermittent fasting has become a popular type of dieting and millions of people are following it these days, it is not hundred percent safe for all. Yes, in spite of having several health benefits, fasting also has some side effects that directly affect your physical and mental health. Let’s dive into the details of rhetoric to learn what type of rush factors are associated with intermittent fasting and how they affect your overall health!

Hunger and Cravings

Intermittent fasting has a negative feature of causing great hunger. This is the most common side effect of IF. when you go long periods without eating and reduce your calorie intake to a lowest level, your hunger and cravings increase. 

According to studies, intermittent fasting affects all genders equally. Whether you’re a man or woman, if you’re following intermittent fasting and consuming 500 to 600 calories on two consecutive days every week for a year, you may secure higher hunger than the people who consume  a low calorie diet with continuous calorie restriction. 

The reports revealed that hunger is the initial effect that you may experience during the initial days of fasting. But when your fasting period goes above 21 to 25 days, you may start experiencing a drop in hunger and cravings gradually. This means the hunger symptoms irritate you only during the first few days of fasting. 

So, when your body adapts the regular fasting periods, the hunger and craving issues resolve on their own. 

Headaches and Lightheadedness

All types of fasting cause headaches. This is the most possible cure effect of fasting no matter what the type. The first few days of fasting are  very tough and painful because you may have to bear severe headaches and lightheadedness. This is your body’s response to adopting a new eating style. 

According to a 2021 study, people who do intermittent fasting complain about headaches for the first few days but it is mild in many cases. Experts also have discovered that the frontal region of your brain actually gets affected during fasting. That’s why you feel headaches sometimes mild or moderate in intensity. Another important thing is, people who usually get headaches also experience more headaches during fasting hours. 

Studies also suggested that intermittent fasting actually withdraws caffeine from your diet and lowers the blood sugar levels that lead to headaches.

Temporary Hair Loss

Inadequate protein intake and rapid weight loss result in increased stress in your body. The stress stops hair follicles from entering the growing phase causing telogen effluvium (resting phase of hair follicles). This inadequate nutrition actually leads to hair loss. 

Therefore, it should be kept in mind when you’re following any type of fasting that your goal should be quality eating not less eating. Keep your eating plan well balanced and nutrient dense to avoid any nutrient deficiency that can cause any health condition in future. 

Digestive Issues

Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, nausea and indigestion are common side effects of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting reduces the amount of food on a daily basis and when you eat less amount of food that doesn’t fulfill your body’s energy requirements, you experience digestive side effects if fasting. 

In addition, intermittent fasting also introduces certain changes in your diet that are not accepted by your body readily. As a result you may experience diarrhea, bloating and constipation. Eating fiber rich food burn if you’re doing intermittent fasting can help orient digestive issues. 

Mood Changes and Irritability

Mood disturbances are common outputs of intermittent fasting. People who do fasting strictly, often experience irritability and other mood changes. Most mood change occurs due to lower levels of blood sugar, study says. Because hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) occurs due to restrictive diet and low calorie intake over periods of fasting. This also can can cause:

• Poor concentration.
• Irritability.
• Anxiety.

According to a 2018 study, when people go on long fasts, they become more irritable than non-fasting periods. 

However, the same study also shows the results that even pole becomes more irritable during fasting but afterwards they achieve self-control, higher sense of achievement and power at the end of fasting. 

Low Energy and Fatigue

Next side effects are low energy and fatigue that are closely related to intermittent fasting. Lower blood sugar levels due to restorative eating causes a sense of tiredness and weakness. Therefore, you start feeling lazy, dizzy and lethargic during fasting periods. 

In addition, fasting also causes sleep disturbances due to which you may not get a good sleep. Lack of sleep also leads to tiredness throughout the day.

According to a 2021 study, when your body becomes familiar with the regular fasting periods and becomes adjusted to them, you may feel that fatigue and tiredness is going away automatically. 

Bad Breath

The most unpleasant side effect of all types of fasting is bad breath that makes people annoyed and unbreakable. The lack of salivary flow during fasting gives a cruise to acetone in the breath causing foul smell. Acetone is a by-product of fat breakdown that occurs during intermittent fasting. During fasting your body uses fuel and thus acetone levels increase in your blood causing bad breath. 

The next cause of bad breath is dehydration. During intermittent fasting, you obviously drink less water and your mouth remains dry most of the time leading to bad breath. 

Sleep Disturbances

Sleep disturbances also occur when you do intermittent fasting. Experts believe that sleep disturbance is the most remitted side effect of fasting. Low calorie dust often causes hunger  that makes it difficult for the people to have a sound and deep sleep at night. 

In addition, during initial days of fasting, your body releases more water and salts through urination that leads to dehydration and lower salt levels as well. 

But some studies still emphasize that intermittent fasting and sleep has no connection at all. Moreover, many researchers worked on intermittent fasting and its effects on sleep and they found that following a fasting plan with a low carb diet consecutively for 6 months can help you achieve your weight loss goals but this will never affect your sleep quality. 

Dehydration

This is another threatening side effect of intermittent fasting. During fasting your body releases large amounts of water and salts through urine. Although it’s a natural process of urination, it can cause severe dehydration that sometimes proves fatal. 

Replacing the fluids and electrolytes that you lost can help you rehydrate yourself. But it is a common observation that people when doing fasting often forget to drink enough water. This is common in people who are beginners to fasting. 

So, staying hydrated properly and drinking enough water even if your dog is fasting can help get rid of dehydration. 

Most importantly, you should monitor the color of your urine when doing fasting. If it is pale lemonade color, you’re safe but if it gets dark-colored, you are going to become severely dehydrated. 

Malnutrition

Intermittent fasting always results in malnutrition. A long term continuous fasting causes depletion of essential nutrients from your body. If you don’t replenish these nutrients regularly, you could be malnourished. In addition, if you would fail in managing a balanced restricted calorie diet, you also may experience malnutrition during fasting. Different types of intermittent fasting programs propose different ways to meet your calorie needs. But if you don’t pay attention to these thugs, and continue ignoring the nutrient deficiencies over long periods of time, you are actually deliberately restricting calories to an extreme level. This can cause severe malnutrition along with other health conditions. 

Therefore, experts suggest taking a well-rounded, nutritious diet while intermittent fasting. Avoiding an overly restructuring diet can protect you from future health conditions. It is good to talk to your professional nutritionist to provide you with a safe diet with intermittent fasting that can provide you a proper number of calories with the right amount of nutrients. 

Who Shouldn’t Do Intermittent Fasting? 

It is true that intermittent fasting has many positive aspects on your physical and mental health but it’s not safe for all. It can cause dangerous eye problems in people. Therefore, experts have suggested that some people should avoid intermittent fasting including:

• Pregnant and breastfeeding people.
• People with dementia.
• People having brain injury.
• Older adults who’re very weak.
• Young children and teens.
• People with an eating disorder.
• People with immunodeficiency.

The list is incomplete and may have some ambiguities. Because there are payoffs that healthcare professionals often treat people with epilepsy by using intermittent fasting. 

In addition, people who ate currency taking medications for treating certain health conditions should discuss the health benefits and risk factors associated with intermittent fasting before starting this diet plan. Because sometimes, fasting proves harmful and increases the risk of side effects. So, it is necessary to find out if intermittent fatigue is safe for. 

Moreover, if intermittent fasting causes long, large effects, you should understand that it is not a safe choice for you. This means IF isn’t working in your case. Common side effects you can observe include:

• Nausea.
• Faintness.
• Headaches.
• Fatigue.
• Extreme hunger.
• Irritability.

Avoid continuing the program when you experience such harmful side effects. You can do some other thighs to improve your health and achieve your weight kiss goals. The IF program even looks beneficial for health in many baskets but if it is not working for you, avoid it. 

Look for another diet plan that doesn’t cause harmful impacts on your mental and physical health, provides you with a nutritious diet and helps you manage stress, improves sleep and improves your mood.

Conclusion

You may find many research findings that will prove that intermittent fasting is associated with several health benefits including weight loss, reduced heart disease, decreased risk factors for many health conditions and increased blood sugar control. But it also has some side effects such as increased hunger, poor sleep quality, hair loss, irritability, headaches and bad breath. Its side effects sometimes lead to other serious health conditions. 

Therefore it is necessary to discuss with a professional healthcare expert if intermittent fasting is a right choice for you or not. 

In addition, if you are pregnant, have an eating disorder or have any other health condition for which you’re taking certain medicines, you cannot go for intermittent fasting.