A study conducted at an American university hospital has found that restricting eating to between the hours of 7am and 3pm may help to increase weight loss and lower blood pressure.
The Weight Loss Medicine Clinic at the University of Alabama conducted the study of 90 obese adults between the ages of 25 and 75 over a two-year period.
The trial found that those who stopped eating after 3pm lost about 5 pounds (2.3kg) more than those who ate throughout the day.
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“The eTRE (early time-restricted eating) intervention may therefore be an effective treatment for both obesity and hypertension,” the researchers said.
The authors also said that the restrictions boosted the moods of the subjects by reducing fatigue and feelings of depression while increasing vigour. Those who were able to stick with the restrictive programme also lost more body fat and trunk fat.
“Our data suggest that eTRE is feasible, as participants adhered six days per week on average, and most participants adhered at least five days per week,” the authors said.
“Despite the challenges of navigating evening social activities and occupational schedules, adherence to eTRE was similar to that of other TRE interventions … and satisfaction was similar between groups.
On top of this, the researchers found than 41% of participants intended to continue with eTRE once the trial was over.
Despite the positive findings in the study though, the authors admitted the trial did have its limitations. First among those was the small sample size, which the team put down to difficulties resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our study has a few limitations, including being modest in duration, enrolling mostly women, and not achieving our intended sample size, partly owing to the Covid-19 pandemic,” the researchers said.
“Future clinical trials will need to enroll much larger sample sizes — up to approximately 300 participants — to determine whether IF (intermittent fasting) affects body composition and cardiometabolic health,” they said.
“Future studies should investigate whether the timing and duration of the eating window affect these results, as well as determine who can adhere to eTRE vs. who cannot and would instead benefit from other meal-timing interventions.
“The eTRE intervention should be further tested as a low-cost, easy-to-implement approach to improve health and treat disease.”
Another possible issue with the study is the fact that exercise activity was self-reported by the subjects, which makes the data less reliable.
“Also, we measured physical activity by self-report, not by accelerometry, which may have limited our ability to detect differences in physical activity between groups.
UCD professor of nutrigenomics Helen Roche described the findings of the study as “interesting.”
“I have looked at the paper and it’s quite good,” she said. “Essentially, TRE is looking as if it’s a good way to help people who wish to lose weight.”
“It is not a huge study, in terms of number of subjects, but it is a robust study design to demonstrate the paradigm biologically," she said.
“The real challenge moving forward will be to see how long people might be able to stick to that dietary pattern and keep the weight off long-term.”
The HSE responded to they study. A spokesperson said: "Healthy eating is important for all of the Irish population, regardless of body size, weight or health status. The Healthy Ireland Food Pyramid can be used as a resource for nutrition and food related education for the general public.
"There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to weight management," they added.
"Adults living with obesity can work with a Coru Registered Dietitian and may consider various eating plans to support weight management. Specific nutrition advice should align with a person’s values, preferences and social circumstances. Options that are tailored to the individual and flexible will be easier to stick to. Eating plans should focus on health improvement, meeting nutritional requirements and quality of life, not just weight loss," the spokesperson stated.
Continuing, they said: "Intermittent fasting includes a variety of meal timing approaches that alternate periods of extended fasting (no intake, or less than 25% of needs) and periods of unrestricted intake. Studies that have compared intermittent energy restriction with continuous energy restrictions show similar results in weight loss and other health indicators.
"Adherence to the plan was similar between continuous and intermittent energy restriction groups, with higher drop-out rates and adverse events in the intermittent fasting groups. Intermittent fasting can result in short term body weight reduction, but is not sustainable in the long term (ie greater than 12 months) because calorie restriction may affect how the body controls hunger, cravings and body weight-leading to increased food intake and weight regain.
"Furthermore, restrictive eating patterns can increase risk of nutrient deficiency and malnutrition. Adults living with obesity can consider a range of options to improve their health, it is recommended to choose an approach that they can stick with in the long term. A non-restrictive approach is recommended to improve quality of life, wellbeing, cardiovascular health, body weight, physical activity and eating behaviour.
"While the short term results of this study appear promising, they cannot be translated into population level advice as a single approach to weight management.
"For information on eating well, keeping active, minding your mood and more health advice, visit: gov.ie - Healthy Ireland (www.gov.ie)."
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