ArticleNature communications2025
Effects of seven days' fasting on physical performance and metabolic adaptation during exercise in humans.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of Intermittent Fasting and Calorie Restriction on Exercise Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2025Pooled it
- Dietary Protein Reduction During Isocaloric Conditions Reduces Body Weight in Men With Overweight or Obesity.Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.) · 2026Trial
- Fasting-induced glucose intolerance is not impacted by the addition of daily exercise: A randomized crossover study.The Journal of physiology · 2026Trial
- Sex-related differences in fine motor skills and muscle strength control during short-term fasting.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Effect of high intakes of protein-only and carbohydrate-only on plasma metabolites and hormones, in addition to nitrogen excretion.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Trial
- Article
- Exercise Training in the Fasted State During the Month of Ramadan: Acutely Ergolytic but Possibly Chronically Ergogenic? A Narrative Review with Systematic Search and Methodological Quality Assessment.Sports medicine - open · 2026Review
- Article
- Marked Increases in Continuous Glucose Monitor-Detected Hypoglycemia During a Seven-Day Water-Only Fast in Healthy Men and Women.Journal of diabetes science and technology · 2026Article
- A Very-low-energy Fast Involves Increased Adipose Inflammatory Gene Expression: A 6-day Feeding Trial (FASTOMICS-6).The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2026Article
- Skeletal muscle metabolism in health and disease: Mechanisms, interventions, and clinical perspectives.iScience · 2026Review
- Claude Bernard's route to the isolation of glycogen: the journey that changed scientific views on the physiological role of the liver and animal metabolism.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Review
- A semantic segmentation model to predict subcellular glycogen localization using transmission electron microscopy images.PloS one · 2026Article
- Effect of 8 days of water-only fasting and exercise on liver, kidney and pancreas functions in middle-aged men.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Consensus Document of the Spanish Nutrition Society (SEÑ) on Nutritional Strategies in Sports.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Acute and Intermittent Exogenous Ketosis to Support Recovery From Exercise and Adaptations to Exercise Training: A Narrative Review.Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports · 2025Review
- Metabolic stress and muscle mechanics: Acute response of isolated soleus and EDL muscles to prolonged fasting in mice with distinct muscle phenotypes.Biology open · 2025Article
- Crosstalk Between Skeletal Muscle and Proximal Connective Tissues in Lipid Dysregulation in Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes.Metabolites · 2025Review
- V-ATPase and Lysosomal Energy Sensing in Periodontitis and Medicine-Related Osteonecrosis of the Jaw.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- Metabolic and hormonal effects of an 8 days water only fasting combined with exercise in middle aged men.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Humans have, throughout history, faced periods of starvation necessitating increased physical effort to gather food. To explore adaptations in muscle function, 13 participants (7 males and 6 females) fasted for seven days. They lost 4.6 ± 0.3 kg lean and 1.4 ± 0.1 kg fat mass. Maximal isometric and isokinetic strength remained unchanged, while peak oxygen uptake decreased by 13%. Muscle glycogen was halved, while expression of electron transport chain proteins was unchanged. Pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 (PDK4) expression increased 13-fold, accompanied by inhibitory pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphorylation, reduced carbohydrate oxidation and decreased exercise endurance capacity. Fasting had no impact on 5' AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity, challenging its proposed role in muscle protein degradation. The participants maintained muscle strength and oxidative enzymes in skeletal muscle during fasting but carbohydrate oxidation and high-intensity endurance capacity were reduced.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.