Health
WATCH WHEN
YOU EAT!
Salk scientists continue to find
that when you eat may be as
important as what you eat
I
nternal biological clocks, or circadian rhythms, are
24-hour cycles that govern the behavior of living
things. Scientists are finding more and more
evidence that disruptions to this timing in
humans can influence diet and sleep and
lead to obesity, stress, metabolic disorder and
possibly even cancer. What’s more, evidence
increasingly points to ways to improve
health and maintain weight loss by taking
advantage of these circadian rhythms.
Humans evolved to hunt and forage during the day
and sleep at night, meaning that human biology is designed
to support eating and activity during the day and cellular repair
and cleanup at night, according to Salk Professor Satchin Panda. But
modern society offers access to food 24/7. These changes in eating
patterns affect how the body processes food and functions.
The Salk lab previously demonstrated that confining mice to time-
restricted eating during a ten-hour window can protect against
obesity and diabetes. These groundbreaking studies have launched
a new approach to potentially improving human health: restricting
one’s calorie intake to an 8- to 10-hour window could confer a
host of health benefits, including weight loss.
Recently, the team published the results of a small clinical
study (with UC San Diego) in the journal Cell Metabolism
showing that a 10-hour time-restricted eating intervention
for people with metabolic syndrome, when combined with
traditional medications, resulted in weight loss, reduced
abdominal fat, lower blood pressure and cholesterol,
68 GBSAN.COM | FEBRUARY 2020