Intermittent Fasting – Time-Restricted Eating

Introduction

Many thanks to Bob Farrell for this week’s topic. It’s got nothing to do with red meat and it’s a subject in which many people are interested.

Bob spotted a paper published in the journal Nutrients at the end of May 2019. The paper is called “Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels and Affects Markers of the Circadian Clock, Aging, and Autophagy in Humans” and it’s on open view (Ref 1).

The study

Time-restricted feeding is a popular type of intermittent fasting. It involves consuming food within a pre-determined window. The paper claimed that this was the first study to look at the effect of time-restricted feeding on a number of chosen markers of heart health. The markers chosen were: glucose in the blood over a 24-hour period; cholesterol; and triglycerides. The study also looked at a number of genes related to glucose metabolism, the circadian system, fasting, autophagy and oxidative stress. (Explanations for these terms are in Ref 2)