Intermittent fasting may lower risk of heart disease, diabetes
Eating meals within a consistent window of time may help reduce a person's risk of heart disease or diabetes, according to new data published in Endocrine Reviews.
The strategy is based on a type of intermittent fasting known as time-restricted eating (TRE), which limits food intake to a certain number of hours each day. The interval is typically 8 to 10 hours. TRE is used, among other things, to help people lose weight and improve their overall health.
“People who are trying to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle should pay more attention to when they eat as well as what they eat,” senior author Satchidananda Panda, PhD, with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, in a press release. “TRE is an easy-to-follow and effective dietary strategy that requires less mental math than counting calories. Intermittent fasting can improve sleep and a person’s quality of life as well as reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.”
Panda et al. examined the science behind TRE, noting that genes, hormones and metabolism rise and fall at different times during a 24-hour day. Coordinating daily eating habits with the body’s internal clock may optimize health and reduce the risk or disease burden of chronic conditions including diabetes, heart and liver disease, the team wrote.
“Eating at random times breaks the synchrony of our internal program and make us prone to diseases,” Panda said in the same prepared statement. "Intermittent fasting is a lifestyle that anyone can adopt. It can help eliminate health disparities and lets everyone live a healthy and fulfilling life."
The authors noted that while the mechanisms of TRE are not fully explained, animal experiments have produced impressive data in preventing or reversing metabolic diseases that are linked with obesity.
“More rigorous human studies are needed to assess the efficacy, mechanism, and sustainability of TRE in a wide range of populations and diseases,” they wrote.
The full analysis is available here.