A leading Indian newspaper published a story on July 3rd, 2019 with the headline reading “Crying between 7 pm to 10 pm can help you lose weight, claims study”.

This, according to the study cited by the news report is because emotional crying is linked to hormones that help to heighten the cortisol level. Based on the study, tears triggered by real emotions will only make the slimming effect and that the best time to cry is from 7 to 10 in the evening.

We fact-checked this scientific claim and found the story is based on an old story published on May 8, 2019, in Singapore based digital content site, AsiaOne.

On further research, we found the story was originally published by Philippine-based news website which has been republished with different versions by dozens of other publications around the world and shared tens and thousands of times on social media.

The study comes on behalf of Dr Aaron Neufeld of the Los Altos Optometric group. On his Linkedin page, Dr Aaron Neufeld is an optometrist based in the USA and is the owner/CEO at Los Altos Optometric Group. Health Analytics Asia contacted him on 14 July about the research and its findings. He has not replied to us yet. We will update the story as soon as we hear from him.

There is no mention in the news reports about the methodology of this research, sample size and where this study was conducted or any conflict of interest of authors.

Many news websites cited an old paper of Biochemist William Frey as the original source. Frey’s study dates back to the 1980’s. He found that stress-induced tears remove many kinds of toxic chemicals from the body. Although the exact role of these chemicals in weight loss is not clear.

Frey’s much-publicised research has taken many turns since its inception and is currently doing rounds on social media with twisted facts even including a time-frame for crying.

However, there is no clear scientific evidence of the link between weight loss and crying. So take these stories with a pinch of salt and don’t start crying every day between 7 pm to 9 pm just because you want to lose weight.

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