Abstract
Time-restricted feeding (TRF) studies underscore that when food is consumed during the daily cycle is important for weight gain/loss because the circadian clock rhythmically modulates metabolism. However, the interpretation of previous TRF studies has been confounded by study designs that introduced an extended period of enforced fasting. We introduce a novel time-optimized feeding (TOF) regimen that disentangles the effects of phase-dependent feeding from the effects of enforced fasting in mice, as well as providing a laboratory feeding protocol that more closely reflects the eating patterns of humans who usually have 24 hour access to food. Moreover, we test whether a sudden switch from ad libitum food access to TRF evokes a corticosterone (stress) response. Our data indicate that the timing of high-fat feeding under TOF allows most of the benefit of TRF without obligatory fasting or evoking a stress response. This benefit occurs through stable temporal coupling of carbohydrate/lipid oxidation with feeding. These results highlight that timing the ingestion of calorically dense foods to optimized daily phases will enhance lipid oxidation and thereby limit fat accumulation.
Highlights
The balance between weight gain and loss is largely determined by the quantity and quality of food consumed, as well as by the amount of physical activity
Gradually adapts to the altered feeding pattern over the subsequent one to two weeks. We tested this hypothesis by continuously monitoring VO2 and VCO2 using indirect calorimetry as the mice transition to time-restricted feeding (TRF) using the feeding/fasting regimens introduced by Arble et al [13]
The data shown in electronic supplementary material, figure S2 are of respiratory exchange ratio (RER), which is sensitive to changes in substrate oxidation
Summary
The balance between weight gain and loss is largely determined by the quantity and quality of food consumed, as well as by the amount of physical activity. Metabolic rate and switching between preferred metabolic pathways is differentially regulated over the day/night cycle, which predicts that the daily timing of meals can affect nutrient disposition. The daily timing of meals in humans can influence metabolic switching between lipid versus carbohydrate oxidation (CO) [8,9,10,11]. These findings and predictions have translational import, especially to shiftworkers whose daily timing of eating is disrupted and who are much more likely to develop obesity and metabolic syndrome-related disorders [3,5,6,12]
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