effects of ramadan fasting on inflammatory biomarkers and body composition in healthy subjects (ahead of publication)

background: during the ramadan ceremony, adult muslims abstain from drinking and eating between sunrise and sunset. it seems influence on their lifestyle such as eating behavior, meal schedule and also their sleeping. these changes may effect on the endocrine and neuroendocrine circadian patterns and consequently on cardiovascular indices. this study was performed to assess the effects of ramadan fasting on serum high sensitive c reactive protein(hs-crp)and homocysteine as the risk factors of cardiovascular disease and body composition in iranian population.material and method: healthy volunteers who fasted at least during 20 days of ramadan were included in the study. body composition and biochemical markers were measured before ramadan and after ramadan. paired samples t-test was performed for analyzing the differences between results for normally distributed parameters and wilcoxon signed ranks test for not normally distributed parameters. all data analyzed by spss version 11, 5.results: fifty one healthy volunteers (mean age: 36 ± 10 years) participated in this study. the analyses showed a reduction in body mass index and fat mass pre and post ramadan fasting. however, lean body mass and total body water was unchanged by fasting. variation in the serum hs-crp and homocysteine were no statistically significant. the results also were the same across the gender. conclusion: our study demonstrated that ramadan fasting may ameliorate fat mass in fasting volunteers with no adverse effects on inflammatory biomarkers of cardiovascular disease.