Which Diet is Better for Fatty Liver Disease: Time Restrictive Feeding or Vegetarian?

 The TLDR:

• A 2025 study (Shafi et al.) investigated the effects of time-restricted feeding (16/8) versus a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet on Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease (MAFLD) over 12 weeks.
• The lacto-ovo-vegetarian group showed greater weight loss and significant reductions in liver enzymes, triglycerides, insulin, and tumor necrosis factor compared to the time-restricted feeding group.
• While both diets led to body fat loss and some reduction in liver enzymes, the study's primary outcome of liver fibrosis reduction was only estimated, making it difficult to definitively determine which diet was more effective, leading Dr. Wells to suggest the best diet is likely the one promoting weight loss for the individual.

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Transcript:

Transcript: Hello everyone, Dr. Wells here from Nutritional Physical Therapy. I've got another great research update for you. Hope you're having a great day. This one is an article, a randomized trial, published in Science Repository in 2025 of February, titled, Effects of Time-Restricted Feeding Combined with Lacto-Ovo-Vegetarian Diet on Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease Management. It's a mouthful. It's by Shafi et al, and I know time-restricted feeding has been very popular over the last couple of years. There's some evidence for it, some evidence against it. I think ultimately it comes down to it's still a calorie-restricted diet, but interestingly enough, it's cool to see them utilize this diet in the presence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If you're not familiar with NAFLD, or NAFLD as some people call it, it's definitely a growing issue, and it's growing more and more mostly due to metabolic concerns, so typically obesity, insulin resistance, we kind of see these factors stack up and promote basically a fibrotic liver with fatty infiltration. It's a major issue, and it's actually, I think, now we're on par with NAFLD has overtaken alcoholic fatty liver disease, so definitely concerning. In this RCT, there was 46 participants. Half went into this time-restricted feeding, so a classic 16 and 8, so 16 fasting and 8 consuming. The other group also, they went on a lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet, which is a diet that is restricted in meat, but they can eat dairy and eggs. The plan was for a 12-week plan, and what they saw after the 12 weeks was that those on the lacto-ovo diet had greater weight loss. They also had a significant reduction in liver enzymes, a significant reduction in triglycerides, insulin, and tumor necrosis factor, so these are all things that point towards NAFLD and issues with the liver. At the end, though, their primary outcome was to reduce liver fibrosis, but they only estimated the liver fibrosis, so it was hard to tell which diet really produced it. At the end, they both had significant reductions in body fat loss, and they had some reductions in those liver enzymes, so I would say that the authors overall kind of overstated their findings a little bit, and really, I think what it comes down to is that whatever diet works best for that patient to lose weight is what they should be choosing. Anyhow, hope you like this research update. For more, check out our courses online and sign up today. Thanks.