[Rhonda]: So just sort of since we're talking about this, do we have any human evidence
that the people that have, for example, like metabolic syndrome, if they eat within a time-restricted
eating window, there's any benefits to that without changing their food composition?
[Satchin]: Well, historically most of these research studies haven't looked at timing
per se, but there was a very nice, comprehensive review published by American Heart Association
that went back to many studies where timing, or at least how many times people ate during
the day, was recorded.
And after compiling all the studies, it was close to 70 or 80 different studies related
to fasting of decent quality, how many times people ate, that found that, yes, limiting
food to a certain number of hours during the day or maintaining overnight fasting was beneficial
for cardiovascular health.
So that's a very well done meta-review of existing literature.
What we need to do now is to look for new studies where this is specifically looked
at where everything else is kept constant and timing is changed so that we'll see whether
the benefit is seen among individuals who already have metabolic syndrome.
So that's what is lacking in the field.
And, as you know, this is a very new area of research and NIH funding cycle is five
years, so any of the studies will take at least five to seven years before we see any
result and peer-reviewed journals.
[Rhonda]: Particular for, I guess, a clinical trial of actually looking at someone with
metabolic syndrome.
Probably obesity...
I mean if a person is obese, it may take a little more than just time-restricted eating
to lose weight.
Although they may, they may lose some.
They may require more of a, like, prolonged sort of fasting, but the time-restricted eating
certainly would affect their...
I would predict would affect their metabolism.
[Satchin]: Yeah.
So what we see in our study, a small study that was published, and also some of the other
studies that may be in the pipeline, when people adopt a time-restricted feeding in
their regular life, in real life, not in the laboratory condition or in clinical trial,
then they naturally reduce their caloric intake without even counting calories.
So, for example, when they stop, suppose their target to stop around 6:00, 7:00, or 8:00
in the evening, then the late night snacks and then the late night glass of wine or beer
that used to be their usual habit, they stop that.
So in that way they're doing two things, one is reducing calories and also improving nutrition
quality because that extra energy-dense diet is not getting into their system.
So in that way I'm hopeful that we'll see some weight loss, and then some improvement
in real health, blood biomarkers.
And in rodent studies what we have seen when we take already fat mice, who have been eating
a really unhealthy diet for a long period in their life, and then put them on a time-restricted
feeding paradigm, they don't become, like, lean mice in terms of body weight.
They become overweight, not normal.
But surprisingly they're biochemically...or physiologically they're more healthy because
their blood biomarkers for glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, they come to almost normal
range.
So we have to make the distinction that some people may not lose a huge amount of weight,
but they might actually see benefits in their metabolism and physiology.
So that's one thing you have to look out for.
[Rhonda]: But this is, the mouse study you were just referring to, they were still fed
a poor diet?
[Satchin]: Isocaloric.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, okay.
[Satchin]: Yeah, they were still fed a poor diet, isocaloric diet.
[Rhonda]: So imagine if they were fed a better diet and...the obese mice were fed a better
diet and they were doing time-restricted eating.
[Satchin]: Yeah, so they would be much better.
[Rhonda]: Much better.
[Satchin]: They would lose more fat mass and become much more healthier.