if true possibly good for losing and keeping weight off - and potentially bad for the restaurant industry

First I stress this is only a single study, but it is interesting.

 

What if the timing of when food was eaten was as or more important than the type of food?

A study appeared in the May 16^th issue of Cell Metabolism that appears to have shown a serious benefit for mice that fastest for 16 hours (straight) a day compared with those who could eat at will.

 

Both groups ate the same amount of food, but the fasting group was able to handle fat much better.

So if you want to experiment, this seems simple enough ... if you have the will power and promise to be kind to those around you.

 

I only know the estingboatterns of a few, but some who have had no weight problems seem to not be snackers - just three meals a day at "normal" times. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation

 

Perhaps they are eating during these efficient times.

 

And when I was a kid we first ate at breakfast around 7am and then in the evening around 6 with very little snacking until I became a teen.

 

One has to wonder if the pre-TV era was marked by 12 hour daily fasts?

 

I'm going to bet that this isn't a silver bullet, but that timing is important at some level and partial fasting can't hurt (unless you go crazy).

 

But if it is very important the snack food and restaurant industries need a bit of re-thinking. And there is this other question of what is the impact of the timing of exercise.

 

Science News article

Abstract

Time-Restricted Feeding without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet

• Megumi Hatori¹,

   

  ⁴,

   

• Christopher Vollmers¹,

   

  ⁴,

   

• Amir Zarrinpar¹,

   

  ²,

   

  ⁴,

   

• Luciano DiTacchio¹,

   

  ⁴,

   

• Eric

   

  A. Bushong³,
• Shubhroz Gill¹,

   

• Mathias Leblanc¹,

   

• Amandine Chaix¹,

   

• Matthew Joens¹,

   

• James

   

  A.J. Fitzpatrick¹,

   

• Mark

   

  H. Ellisman³,

   

• Satchidananda Panda¹,

   

• ¹

   

  Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
• ²

   

  Department of Gastroenterology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
• ³

   

  National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA

• Received 7 February 2012. Revised 18 March 2012. Accepted 25 April 2012. Available online 16 May 2012.

   

  Published online: May 17, 2012.

 

Summary

While diet-induced obesity has been exclusively attributed to increased caloric intake from fat, animals fed a high-fat diet (HFD) ad libitum (ad lib) eat frequently throughout day and night, disrupting the normal feeding cycle. To test whether obesity and metabolic diseases result from HFD or disruption of metabolic cycles, we subjected mice to either ad lib or time-restricted feeding (tRF) of a HFD for 8

 

hr per day. Mice under tRF consume equivalent calories from HFD as those with ad lib access yet are protected against obesity, hyperinsulinemia, hepatic steatosis, and inflammation and have improved motor coordination. The tRF regimen improved CREB, mTOR, and AMPK pathway function and oscillations of the circadian clock and their target genes' expression. These changes in catabolic and anabolic pathways altered liver metabolome and improved nutrient utilization and energy expenditure. We demonstrate in mice that tRF regimen is a nonpharmacological strategy against obesity and associated diseases.

---

Graphical Abstract

 

 

 

Highlights

► Time-restricted feeding improves clock and nutrient sensor functions ► tRF prevents obesity, diabetes, and liver diseases in mice on a high-fat diet ► Nutrient type and time of feeding determine liver metabolome and nutrient homeostasis ► tRF raises bile acid production and energy expenditure and reduces inflammation

 

 

 

Comments

[Roger]

I have been reading some western novels recently and have noted that cooks and old ranch owners tend to be fat, while cowboys tend to be non fat. Is this because cooks and old ranch owners eat more or because they exercise less? I would guess it is because they exercise less, since they know that they don't have to exercise more to survive. Cowboys, on the other hand, know that they must exercise more to survive, so they exercise more.

Let us look at those University mice. Just because they reside in cages at a university does not make them any more intelligent than our mice who scrounge in the out buildings on our farm, keeping watchful eyes for cats and coyotes. Our mice do not have the luxury of watching TV as the University mice do. Our mice do not have the luxury of being handed food as the University mice do. Our mice are all skinny, because they are either running, running, running to stay one step ahead of the cats and coyotes, or they are running, running, running to find enough food to survive. Sorry mice, you are on your own, no saucers of cream or Twinkies.

So now I wonder what those University mice do in their spare time. Clearly they are not running, running, running to stay one step ahead of the cats and coyotes. The more important question is, are they running, running, running to find enough food to survive? My thinking is that some of them are running and some are not. The cooks and old ranch owners do not have to search far to find food enough to survive; it lies right in front of then all the time. Cowboys, on the other hand, cannot eat a cow or pig or jimson weed whenever struck by a hunger pang, so they must work on. Now those fat University mice, fed on a regular basis, may have little incentive to get out and forage for food, because their tummies are less empty and more content. But those skinny University mice, on an unconventional fasting diet, may have much incentive to get out and forage for food, because their tummies may not be happy. So, rather than sitting around watching TV as the fat and happy mice may be prone to do, the skinny and unhappy mice will probably circle round and round their cages searching for food and burning off excess calories absorbed from their last food orgy.

Now I am not a scientist, but I wonder if these laboratory experiments have taken into account and recorded all controlling factors. If a mouse is accustomed to foraging for food only when its stomach indicates the necessity, then a regularly fed mouse may have less incentive to exercise and thus gain weight. A well run laboratory test would have recorded and reported the 24-hour activity cycle of each mouse. Were all mice equally active, or were the regularly feed mice less active with a tendency to burn fewer calories?