PREVENTING obesity may down to timing, in mice, at least. Mice allowed meals only within an 8-hour period were healthier than those that munched freely through the day, even when they consumed more fat.
of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and colleagues fed two groups of mice a high-fat diet. One group could snack whenever they liked, the other could only eat during an 8-hour window. Two other groups were fed a healthy diet under the same conditions.
Three months later, the weight of mice on the all-day, high-fat diet had increased by 28 per cent. Their blood sugar levels had gone up – a risk factor for diabetes – and they also had liver damage. In contrast, mice eating a high-fat diet for only 8 hours a day stayed healthy and didn’t become obese. They also had better balance than mice on a healthy diet.
Advertisement
Panda thinks the shortened feeding period gives metabolic systems longer to perform their function uninterrupted by a new influx of nutrients (, ).
The researchers have now begun experiments with human volunteers.