Intermittent fasting can help people with GI problems caused by Crohn’s disease, a new clinical trial has found.

Crohn’s patients who restricted their eating to an eight-hour window each day saw a 40% decrease in the frequency of bowel movements within three months, researchers reported Feb. 9 in the journal Gastroenterology.

Patients’ abdominal pains also were cut in half by time-restricted fasting, researchers said.

“We saw meaningful improvements in disease symptoms, reduced abdominal discomfort, favorable shifts in metabolism and inflammation and promising changes in gut bacteria — all suggesting that intermittent fasting may help patients maintain lasting remission from Crohn’s disease,” senior researcher Dr. Maitreyi Raman said in a news release. She’s an associate professor of medicine at the University of Calgary in Canada.

Crohn's is an inflammatory bowel disease that can damage any part of the digestive tract, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Its main symptoms are diarrhea, malnutrition and abdominal pain or cramping.

For the new study, researchers recruited 35 adults with Crohn’s disease who were overweight or obese, and randomly assigned 20 to intermittent fasting. The rest followed their regular diet.

The patients assigned to fasting didn’t have to cut calories, researchers said – they only had to restrict their eating to an eight-hour period each day.

After 12 weeks, those on intermittent fasting had lost about 5.5 pounds, while those who kept eating as usual had gained 3.7 pounds.

In addition to easing symptoms of Crohn's, time-restricted fasting also decreased people’s body fat, lowered blood markers associated with inflammation and improved the diversity of their gut bacteria, researchers found.

“This study shows that while weight loss is an important outcome in people with overweight and Crohn’s disease, time-restricted feeding offers additional benefits beyond just the scale,” Raman said.

Specifically, the results indicate that the timing of meals might play a unique role in supporting a person’s digestive and immune health, researchers said.

“People with Crohn’s disease often look for practical tools to support their health alongside medication,” said lead investigator Natasha Haskey, a research associate at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

“Our research suggests time-restricted eating may be a sustainable option grounded in biology, offering patients more ways to manage their own wellness,” Haskey said in a news release.

However, researchers said larger studies are needed to confirm both these findings and the long-term safety of intermittent fasting for Crohn’s patients.