so you can correlate success with trial animals to success with humans. eh ? i know its hackernews but i see a lot of people preaching about their favorite hacky fad food habits.How about asking people to live a normal healthy lifestyle. Few hours of exercise and normal food that your body can sustain.

"Normal" is a weasel word though -- who defines normal? Not to mention that being overweight is, now, quite "normal"

There was once a time in history where lead piping was normal and it was normal to have heavy metal poisoning.

how about defining normal as "what humanity ate when it was developing"?

Even just to say whole plants and animals, in about the proportions that they were naturally available about 40000 years ago.

There's no reason to expect this to give you increased longevity though, dying was adaptive to early humans.

Well unless you can tell me what makes humans so different from monkeys that you think it won't work.

Lots of interventions that work in animal models do not work in humans. Physiology is different as is adherence. Humans control their own diets, so a really difficult diet will simply result in no humans sticking with it.

Humans aren't even monkeys. So it's not surprising that "works in monkeys" is a mediocre proxy for "works in humans".

Well then here is human trials:

In a pilot human trial, three cycles of a similar diet given to 19 subjects once a month for five days decreased risk factors and biomarkers for aging, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer with no major adverse side effects, according to Longo.

BOOM.

Like many intermittent fasting proponents, you look at these studies that enforce days of significantly-reduced caloric intake and assume that a positive result there transfers to "skipping dinner or breakfast" just because both are referred to as "intermittent fasting". Even if 5 days of significant caloric restriction extends lifespan, that in no way indicates that 14-16 hour fasting does.

Also, I never said that intermittent fasting was ineffective in humans. I said that animal models do not always map well to humans. Scientists who use animal models understand their shortcomings. You should do some basic research before throwing up your arrogant "boom" as if you proved something.

Why don't you look at the actual article?

Which article, the one about eating after 8pm having no relation to obesity in children that has pretty much nothing to do with intermittent fasting? Yeah, I read that one.

Or the one you randomly quoted but didn't even bother to provide a link to? The one that did a pilot study in humans specifically because the researchers know that animal studies don't always map well to humans? The one that did a 5 day fast rather than just skipping breakfast? I read that one, too.

how about starting with basic physical anatomy and then move on the other differences. Also for starters bigger brains, faster metabolism,etc..

unless you consider the above don't have an impact on our food eating and fat storing mechanism.

That's meaningless advice. What is "normal"?

I know i didn't use the perfect word but I said "normal" because each person is different and i don't know a magic one food eating habit that suits every human being.

SO its up to the person and his doctor to figure out what is good for him/her or not and what keeps the individual healthy.