Benefits of time-restricted eating depend on age and sex
Not everyone benefits equally from TRE, but TRE has important health
benefits for all

Date:
August 17, 2021
Source:
Salk Institute
Summary:
Time-restricted eating (TRE), a dietary regimen that restricts
eating to specific hours, has garnered increased attention in
weight-loss circles.

A new study further shows that TRE confers multiple health benefits
besides weight loss. The study also shows that these benefits may
depend on sex and age.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Time-restricted eating (TRE), a dietary regimen that restricts eating
to specific hours, has garnered increased attention in weight-loss
circles. A new study by Salk scientists further shows that TRE confers
multiple health benefits besides weight loss. The study also shows that
these benefits may depend on sex and age.


==========================================================================
Most TRE studies focus on weight loss in young male mice, but Salk
scientists wanted to determine whether TRE confers additional benefits on
other populations. Their findings, published in Cell Reports on August
17, 2021, show that while age and sex do affect the outcomes of TRE,
the eating strategy delivers multiple health benefits for young and old
of both sexes, and indicates that TRE may be a valuable intervention
for type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and liver cancer, and even
infectious diseases such as COVID-19, in humans.

"For many TRE clinical interventions, the primary outcome is weight loss,
but we've found that TRE is good not only for metabolic disease but
also for increased resilience against infectious diseases and insulin resistance," says Satchidananda Panda, a professor in Salk's Regulatory
Biology Laboratory and holder of the Rita and Richard Atkinson Chair.

Glucose intolerance is the first step on a slippery slope to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and liver cancer -- one of the few cancers whose
incidence and death rates have increased, rather than declined, in
the past 25 to 30 years. Further, over 40 percent of Americans are
already diabetic or prediabetic, with the American Diabetes Association predicting 1.5 million new cases each year. These trends make finding
a simple treatment for glucose intolerance a major priority.

Breaking the conventional young-male-mice mold, the researchers fed
a high-fat, high-sugar diet to male and female mice of two age groups (equivalent to 20- and 42-year-old humans), restricting eating to nine
hours per day. The team ran tests to ascertain how age and sex affect
the outcomes of TRE on a variety of health parameters: fatty liver
disease; glucose regulation; muscle mass, performance and endurance;
and survival of sepsis, a life-threatening response to infection. They
also took the rare step of matching their lab conditions to the animals' circadian clocks (mice sleep during the day and rise at night), often
working via night-vision goggles and specialized lighting.

Analyzing the tissues of mice on TRE to ascertain their chemical makeup
and processes, the researchers found that regardless of age, sex or
weight loss profile, TRE strongly protected against fatty liver disease,
a condition that affects up to 100 million Americans and for which no
medicine has been approved.



========================================================================== "This was our first time studying female mice, and we weren't sure what
to expect," says first author Amandine Chaix, a former staff scientist
in the Panda lab and now an assistant professor at the University of
Utah. "We were surprised to find that, although the females on TRE were
not protected from weight gain, they still showed metabolic benefits,
including less-fatty livers and better-controlled blood sugar."
Oral glucose tolerance tests given to mice after 16 hours of fasting
indicated that TRE was associated with a lower increase in blood glucose
and a faster return to normal blood sugar levels in both young and
middle-aged males, with a significant improvement in glucose tolerance
in young and middle-aged females.

Similarly, middle-aged females and males on TRE were able to restore
normal blood sugar levels more efficiently than control mice, who had food available at all times. This finding indicates that TRE may be a low- or no-cost, user- friendly way to prevent or treat diabetes, and supports the results of the lab's 2019 study on TRE for metabolic syndrome in humans.

The researchers also found that TRE may protect both males and females
from sepsis-induced death -- a particular danger in ICUs, especially
during the pandemic. After administering a toxin that induced a
sepsis-like condition in the mice, the researchers monitored survival
rates for 13 days and found that TRE protected both male and female mice
from dying of sepsis.

TRE didn't just protect against fatty liver disease, diabetes, and death
from sepsis; it even enabled male mice to preserve and add muscle mass and improve muscle performance (the effect did not hold for females). This
finding is particularly significant for the elderly, for whom improved
muscle performance can help guard against falls.

This surprising discovery points to next steps and new questions for
Panda's lab: Does muscle mass increase because TRE helps muscles repair
and regenerate better? What is the impact of TRE on muscle metabolism
and regeneration? "These are very exciting questions for us, and we
look forward to studying them in more detail," says Panda.

The research was supported by the American Heart Association, National Institute on Aging, Glenn Center for Aging Research and Wu-Tsai Human Performance Alliance.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Salk_Institute. Note: Content may
be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Amandine Chaix, Shaunak Deota, Raghav Bhardwaj, Terry Lin,
Satchidananda
Panda. Sex- and age-dependent outcomes of 9-hour
time-restricted feeding of a Western high-fat high-sucrose
diet in C57BL/6J mice. Cell Reports, 2021; 36 (7): 109543 DOI:
10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109543 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210817111456.htm

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