Table 3.

Results of the meta-analysis of the studies investigating the effect of fasting on weight changes before and after Ramadan

			95 % CI		P value		P value for
	n*	Difference (kg)	Lower	Upper	for difference	I 2 (%)	publication bias†
Δweight1
Men	19	−1·51	−2·04	−0·98	<0·001	75·0	0·22
Women	10	−0·92	−1·37	−0·48	<0·001	10·1	0·65
African	7	−1·13	−1·81	−0·46	0·001	52·5	0·10
West Asian	18	−1·24	−1·85	−0·62	<0·001	85·4	0·07
East Asian	3	−1·56	−2·10	−1·04	<0·001	<1	0·12
Europe	3	−0·64	−0·92	−0·35	<0·001	<1	0·60
Total	34	−1·24	−1·60	−0·88	<0·001	79·1	0·33
Δweight2
Men	5	−0·10	−1·02	0·82	0·83	53·5	0·62
Women	4	−0·55	−1·76	0·65	0·37	<1	0·90
African	5	−0·05	−0·92	0·82	0·90	<1	0·32
West Asian	6	−0·29	−0·29	0·87	0·33	<1	0·85
East Asian	2	−0·88	−1·53	−0·23	0·008	–	–
Europe	2	−0·32	−0·61	−0·02	0·035	–	–
Total	15	−0·27	−0·51	−0·04	0·023	4·1	0·73
Δweight3
Men	5	1·02	0·42	1·63	0·001	56·9	0·62
Women	4	−0·04	−0·52	0·44	0·87	<1	0·50
African	5	0·89	−0·03	1·82	0·058	90·2	0·92
West Asian	7	0·55	−0·04	1·14	0·069	70·7	0·88
East Asian	2	1·08	0·69	1·48	<0·001	–	–
Europe	2	0·46	0·01	0·92	0·049	–	–
Total	16	0·72	0·32	1·13	<0·001	81·7	0·47

Δweight1, difference between body weight at the end of Ramadan and baseline body weight before Ramadan; Δweight2, difference between body weight after Ramadan (>2 weeks) and baseline body weight; Δweight3, difference between body weight after Ramadan and body weight at the end of Ramadan (when the number of findings was <3, only pooled analysis was performed).

*Number of studies included in each analysis.

†Based on Begg's test to estimate the chance of publication bias.