We don’t eat well. In recent years, countless studies have made it clear that our bad habits at the table are damaging our health. Now, a team of researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, has delved into this phenomenon and, in a recent work published in the journal Cell Metabolism , points out that the routines that We continue could partly explain our tendency to add kilos and develop some diseases.
“Most of the population begins their day by having coffee in the morning and having a snack shortly before going to bed, about 14 or 15 hours later,” says biologist Satchidananda Panda, from the aforementioned Salk Institute, who coordinated the trial. “Well, we have observed that restricting intake so that we only eat for a period of 10 hours, which entails fasting the rest of the day, has a beneficial effect on health.”
Up to 10
To determine this, Panda and his colleagues tested this idea in mice, which were forced to follow a high-fat diet. After a while, the rodents, who could feed themselves when they wanted, gained considerable weight and developed various metabolic disorders, from diabetes to fatty liver. His cholesterol levels were also skyrocketing. Nevertheless,Things changed a lot when they were only allowed to eat for 10 hours a day: although they maintained that high-fat diet, their physical condition and health improved.
At first, the researchers thought that this must be related to circadian rhythms. That is, by limiting intake in this way, the animals’ internal clocks were perhaps better synchronized, which would encourage them, for example, to consume more colors when the genes involved in digestion were more active. The surprise came when some mice were turned off the genes responsible for maintaining these circadian rhythms:even in them there were the aforementioned beneficial effects of eating only for 10 hours a day.
According to the researchers, one of the main functions of our internal clocks is telling us when to eat and when not to eat. This helps to keep our body in balance, which needs the contribution of nutrients, but also moments of fasting to repair itself. Of course, keeping things in order is not easy, not only because of the rhythm of life we lead, but because our circadian mechanisms tend to deteriorate over the years. This increases the chances of suffering from any of the aforementioned metabolic diseases, but also cancer or dementia.
Against aging
The intention of the experts is to try to confirm if these same positive effects that they have observed in mice also occur in humans and if this restriction in intake can also prevent some diseases related to aging . If so, a simple change in our habits could significantly improve our health, says Panda.
Referencia: Time-Restricted Feeding Prevents Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome in Mice Lacking a Circadian Clock. Satchidananda Panda et al. Cell Metabolism (2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2018.08.004
