Scoping review protocol to map a decade research pattern in intermittent fasting among overweight and obese adults

Abstract

The yearly rise in overweight and obesity cases can be observed despite various efforts being done such as epidemiological, diet and exercise programmes, and research. Dietary alteration such as intermittent fasting has shown a promising outcome in weight management as people are refraining from consuming any calories for a period of time. In this paper, we provide the framework for a scoping review protocol to identify the scope of intermittent fasting in the last ten years among overweight and obese adults. Following the Arksey and O’Malley method, the protocol for this scoping review was conducted in 5 stages: Identifying the research question, identifying relevant studies, study selection, charting the data and organizing, summarising and reporting the results. The search was conducted based on identified keywords, inclusion and exclusion criteria, including Malay and English language and spanning from 2010 to 2019. The selected literature studies from Embase, Ovid, Pubmed, Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrial.org, Google scholar and theses were scrutinized for their relevance in-line with our scoping target and data will be extracted from the selected literature. Findings of this work will give an overview of the research been conducted for intermittent fasting approach in view for weight management in a span of last 10 years. Potential research can be conducted by taking the research gap into consideration and how the issues can be addressed.