In contemporary societies, eating is usually done at minimum three times per day. Eating with snacks as part of the pattern accompanied by a lack of physical activity can cause serious health issues, such as developing insulin resistance and accumulating excess body fat around the abdominal area. This has led to a very large number of people who are obese, diabetic, and suffering from cardiovascular diseases, as well as other health issues. Certain types of fasting such as intermittent fasting and time restricted eating that limit eating to certain times of the day have been shown to be effective for weight loss and health improvement in small clinical trials. This includes decreased insulin resistance and reduced risks for cardiovascular disease. However, in order to offficially ascertain whether fasting diets are helpful in improving overall wellness and hindering and treating elderly-associated conditions, randomized controlled clinical trials need to be conducted. But what is intermittent fasting vs time restricted eating? Let’s dig in.
What Is Intermittent Fasting?
For thousands of years, a variety of religious organizations have engaged in fasting ceremonies. People who practice fasting will not eat for certain durations, which is referred to as Intermittent Fasting (IF) in the medical/scientific world.
Periodic fasting eating styles normally include longer stretches of time (ex. 16-48 hours) with minimal or no nourishment (food) ingestion and successions of conventional food intake, regularly. Certain intermittent fasting routines separate the fasting and eating part each day, while others have designated fasting days during the week, sandwiched between eating days.
In medical settings, intermittent fasting plans limit the amount of calories consumed in a single week. In some clinical studies of intermittent fasting, participants reduce their caloric intake by 60% for two days a week, or every other day.
What Are the Benefits of Intermittent Fasting?
Most of the evidence for intermittent fasting comes from animal studies. A 2019 research review revealed that animals that consume a diet of intermittent fasting have improved regulation of blood sugar, are more protected from cardiovascular illnesses and cancer, and have a longer life expectancy.
Research into the effects of intermittent fasting in humans has revealed that it can lead to a decrease in blood glucose and insulin levels, an improvement in lipid levels, and a decrease in inflammatory markers.
A 2017 medical study proposes that intermittent fasting creates a metabolic alteration which causes a change in metabolism from the production of lipid/cholesterol and the storing of fat to the burning of fat through fatty acid oxidation and the release of fatty acid-derived ketones, thereby protecting muscle mass and performance. The outcome of this was that overweight individuals had better body compositions, which suggests that it could help slow down the aging and illness processes.
The advantages of intermittent fasting may be due in large part to the fact that most studies show a decrease in bodyweight, as well as an extended period of time without eating.
An additional study review came to the same conclusion that there is increasingly strong proof of IF having a positive effect on preserving sugar and lipid balance over a brief to average time frame. However, this same analysis warned that additional research into its long-term safety is needed.
What Is Time-Restricted Eating?
Conforming to a specific timeframe of when to eat, TRE is a technique whereby all of the day’s meals are confined to between an eight and twelve hour period. Investigators at the Regulatory Biology Laboratory of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that a period of not consuming food or beverages aside from water could be beneficial for health.
The results of the research indicated that the timing of consuming food might be more critical than the meals themselves, specifically regarding one’s circadian cycle.
The Salk Study
Scientists supplied two batches of mice (who had a lot in common) with the same high-fat and high-sugar regimen. This diet imitated the diet that is consumed by most people in the United States. One group of rodents was given unlimited access to food over a 24-hour period. The other group was restricted to only consuming their food during the eight-hour period of darkness, since mice are naturally active at nighttime.
After a period of one hundred days, the set of people who were exposed to the fatty foods all day and night gained weight and started experiencing health problems such as high cholesterol levels, high blood sugar, harm to their livers, and weaker motor skills.
The members of the group who only had the ability to consume food within an eight-hour period were 28 percent lighter in comparison to the other group. Despite having the same diet with the same number of calories, the individuals that adhered to time-restricted eating did not have the same medical problems.
Researchers have faith that studies performed on humans will have similar outcomes to the ones conducted on mice. Researchers have conducted a few trials with participants, which have yielded positive outcomes.
Dr. Satchin Panda, the principal writer of the examination, stated that their exploration recommends it could be advantageous to eat as per a routine timetable and additionally have customary times of fasting. The explanation for this is that the genes associated with digestion are more stimulated during the morning hours whereas the genes responsible for cell recovery are more in action after dark. It is plausible that ingesting nourishment when the body is prepared to process it will bring about positive health outcomes.
Benefits of Time Restricted Eating
This way of eating tries to copy what is believed to be the dietary habits of our forefathers. These hunter-gatherer societies would not have had a constant supply of food. They are only able to find food twice daily (when prey is out of hiding and in a position to be captured). It makes sense to emulate the eating habits of our forebears (who didn’t have the modern health concerns) in order to have a beneficial effect on our wellness. It was ascertained by researchers that utilizing TRE can provide numerous health advantages.
Healthy Weight
Results of the Salk study showed that when food intake persists, the body will keep acquiring fat. After spending a period of time without eating, the body begins to metabolize fat. Eating in a limited window of time decreases the creation of fat and enbles more efficient utilization of it in the physique.
But the time we eat also helps. In a YouTube video interview with Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Dr. Panda discussed a study which found that participants who ate lunch before 3 p.m. experienced a drastic decrease in weight compared to those who ate later in the day, which was more typical in the Spanish area where the study was conducted. The research was adjusted in consideration of physical activity, calorie and food type consumption, etc.
A subsequent study found that TRE was useful in decreasing body fat, as well as in lowering cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
It is not known in people if the effectiveness of TRE is due to the limitation of calories or if any other mechanisms are involved. Nevertheless, the food that lots of folks consume when snacking late at night is typically not nutritious; subsequently it is a success anyway.
Healthy Blood Sugar
TRE can also be helpful for balancing blood sugar. Eating regularly causes the liver to produce glucose, resulting in higher blood sugar amounts. Eating at regular intervals and abstaining from food for extended periods of time can provide relief to the liver from having to produce glucose.
Moreover, during periods of fasting, glucose aids in the production of molecules that can restore broken cells as well as create new DNA. The Salk study discovered that glucose digestion and insulin responsiveness improved when meals were confined to a 12-hour span.
Research conducted at the University of California San Diego revealed similar outcomes. A total of two thousand females who were carrying excess weight were divided into two distinct groups. One group abstained from eating for a minimum of 12 hours during the evening, while the other group did not go as long without food. Those who refrained from eating for a minimum of 12 hours had superior glucose levels when compared to those who abstained from food for shorter stretches of time.
Frequently those experiencing difficulties with their blood sugar levels are encouraged to have frequent snacks that are of a reduced size. This study implies that this advice is not the top option and that longer intervals of abstaining from food could be advantageous.
Reduced Inflammation
Keeping a balance of sugar in the blood and using glucose for cellular maintenance helps reduce inflammation. A lot of long-term illnesses, such as coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, as well as Alzheimer’s, are caused by swelling. The Salk investigation discovered a decrease in inflammation in addition to an improved lipid panel and gene articulation.
Reduced Metabolic Disease
The Salk study team persisted in exploring the concept of TRE in another research and uncovered remarkable findings. The original investigation caused investigators to believe that food consumption helps establish the circadian cycle, but it is possible that this is not the case. The primary role of the animal’s circadian clock appears to be informing them when it is time to eat and when it isn’t. When the body’s normal daily rhythms are thrown off balance, it can lead to ongoing health problems. It is possible that this health problem may stem from not consuming meals at the times that the body is most metabolically capable of processing food.
The circadian clock naturally weakens as we age. This parallels the increase in chances of metabolic illnesses. Researchers believe that having a healthy daily cycle of sleep and wakefulness, by being aware of when we eat, could restrain these diseases. The current prevalence of metabolic disorders (high blood pressure, blood glucose levels, cholesterol, etc.) makes these results quite noteworthy!
Healthy Liver
The findings of the Salk study indicated that cholesterol is only converted into beneficial bile acids when the body is in a fasting state. This breakdown helps cause the metabolism of brown fat. Brown fat is beneficial to the body as it can help reduce other fat deposits, produce heat, and control blood glucose levels.
Dr. Panda discussed in the previously cited YouTube video that the liver’s genes are more responsive to consumption than to illumination. A research project discovered that the livers of mice that were given food during the daytime had genes which activated and deactivated in accordance to that schedule, as did mice provided sustenance at night. To put it another way, it is essential to eat throughout the day in order to ensure the liver is able to digest food during daylight hours. Going without food during the evening hours is necessary for maintaining the liver in a restorative state during the night. The study showed that eating during the daylight hours can help reduce the risk of mild age-related fatty liver.
Time Restricted Eating Vs Intermittent Fasting and the Circadian Rhythms Relationship
In rodent studies, the timing of when these animals eat is an essential factor that separates the majority of Time-Restricted Feeding (TRF) research from some newer Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) research focusing on people. This area of study investigates the interplay between daily cycles, nourishment and metabolic activity, which researchers have labeled chrononutrition. The concept behind this is that since quite a few physiological and behavioral elements stick to a circadian rhythm, the suitability of these circadian rhythms is essential. Metabolism is one such physiological set of events that is highly regulated by circadian rhythms, which are affected by factors that include:
- sleep and wake timing
- light and darkness
- amount of food ingested
- timing of food intake
- activity levels
- body temperature
- aging
Research has shown that incorrect regulation of the body’s sleep-wake cycle can cause an increase in body weight, while other investigators have remarked that eating later in the day could cause metabolic malfunctions, an increase in weight, as well as appetite issues. It has been suggested in other studies that consuming a larger portion of daily calories in the earlier hours of the day could lead to better management of blood sugar levels and assist in weight loss. A different research showed that there would be more weight loss if lunch is eaten earlier instead of later, and that consuming dinner earlier is linked to a lower possibility of cancer.
In recent research, times for eating have been tailored to fit better with human biological clocks, generally focusing on midday eatings rather than late night ones due to their lower effect on blood sugars. Yet this “meal timing” is more difficult for those with type 1 or type 2 diabetes to keep with because of the dawn phenomenon, which causes a surge of abnormally high blood glucose levels right when they wake up in the morning. Much is still to be explored and decided regarding meal scheduling and dieting that is in tune with a person’s circadian rhythm. Even in the animal studies done to date, which do show that TRF (timed to match important circadian rhythms in mice) resulted in very marked health benefits (reduced body weight, total cholesterol, and concentrations of triglycerides, glucose, insulin, interleukin 6, and tumor necrosis factor-α; as well as with improvements in insulin sensitivity), it is not clear whether these benefits are the direct effect of the feeding timing or an indirect effect of sleep loss and lack of physical activity from the altered daytime feeding schedules.
Key takeaways
Fasting in general is becoming increasingly recognized due to the positive health implications seen in some limited research, particularly when it comes to patterns of short-term eating. Changing eating times to fit into an 8 hour period according to when a person intends to be active and rest appears to be doable as many people have adjusted to it successfully. Studies involving humans are necessary to figure out how and how well time restricted eating and other intermittent fasting methods could deal with lots of illnesses. It has been hypothesized by numerous researchers and doctors that combining caloric restriction with such practices would be beneficial; however, more research is required in order to decide which choice is better (time limited diet versus intermittent fasting, for example). At this time, it could be beneficial for you to restrict the amount of time you spend eating, stay away from food for a few hours before you go to bed, and cut down on how many calories you take in (even a bit) as a way of improving your metabolic fitness.
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