Time-restricted eating, a form of intermittent fasting, focuses on when people eat, not primarily on calorie restriction. Typically, this involves eating food in a predetermined time window, for example between ten and eight o’clock. The goal is to give the body a longer break without digestion and allow metabolic changes such as burning fat instead of burning glucose.
The researchers from the National Taiwan University point out that the authors of previous studies have mainly focused on whether this approach works, but less on the role of the timing and length of the eating window. In a new analysis, they show that when people eat may be just as important as how long they eat. The study was published in the journal BMJ Medicine.
The authors found that eating earlier in the day promotes better metabolic health than eating later, even at the same time scale. The best results were achieved by people who ate their last meal before 5 p.m. This regimen has been associated with improvements in body weight, insulin levels, and other metabolic indicators.
According to the researchers, eating between 17:00 and 19:00 was still more favorable than eating windows that started after 9:00 and ended anytime after 19:00. On the contrary, worse results were related to late eating and longer time windows.
“Overall, time-restricted eating was associated with consistent improvements in body weight, body mass index, body fat, waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, and fasting glucose, fasting insulin, and triglyceride levels compared to a normal diet. Time-restricted eating earlier in the day was better than late time-restricted eating,” the authors said.
