Time Restricted Eating
Time-restricted eating is a type of intermittent fasting that limits food intake to a certain number of hours each day. The easiest way to implement time-restricted eating is by fasting overnight, which we already do naturally when we sleep. To benefit from overnight fasting, the fasting period should be 12-16 hours. For instance, if you eat dinner at 7pm and breakfast at 7am, you’re fasting for 12 hours and feeding for 12 hours. The longer you can stretch the fasting period the greater the health benefit.
When we are in a starvation state, or fasting, our body diverts energy into preserving and protecting our system. Fasting for 12-16 hours forces the body to use fat for energy and puts our body into a state known as ketosis. This is a survival adaptation for humans, which helps us endure periods of starvation when food is scarce. Research is finding that this starvation state prolongs life and decreases the risk of cancer.
Time-restricted eating is easy for people to follow and has just as much health benefit, and some studies show more, to our metabolism than daily energy restriction or calorie counting. Time-restricted eating is shown to reduce the occurrence of breast, prostate and pancreatic cancers, as well as the incidence of cardiovascular disease and dementia. Overnight fasting is neuroprotective, and shown to protect memory, improve learning and slow disease processes in the brain.
In one study, breast cancer survivors who fasted for at least 13 hours overnight were 36% less likely to have a recurrence and 21% less likely to experience breast cancer related mortality. For participants, increasing the length of the overnight fast led to better glycemic control and protection from cancer.
There are several explanations for why time-restricted eating or overnight fasting works. One explanation considers the benefits of stressors on our system and the other looks at our circadian biology. In a fasting state, our body’s cells experience mild stress. In response to the stress, our cells adapt and are more able to cope with future stressors and resist disease. Stress is often thought of negatively, but in the right amount, it is very healthy for us.
Our circadian rhythm plays an important role in our biology and allows for healthy metabolic function. All organisms evolve to restrict activity to the night or day by developing a circadian clock that ensures physiological processes happen when they’re supposed to. Our metabolism, hormonal patterns, physical coordination and sleep are all dependent on certain times of day. Time-restricted feeding works in synergy with our natural daily rhythms, and improves metabolism and body weight regulation. Research shows that shift workers have a disrupted circadian rhythm and have an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Time-restricted feeding is easy to implement and safe. Studies show that time-restricted eating regulates blood sugar, improves cardiovascular health, improves brain function, encourages healthy body weight, and protects against cancer. This is an important adjuvant therapy to many health conditions. Talk to your health care provider for more information.
Written By Jennifer Peterson, MSOM, LAc
