5 Conditions That May Benefit From Time-Restricted Eating

Time-restricted eating (TRE), a dietary regimen that restricts eating to a specific set of hours, isn't just about weight loss.

In experiments on laboratory mice (both young and old, of both sexes), scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, found the technique may help humans with frailty, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cancer and infectious diseases such as COVID-19.

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"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,” Satchidananda Panda, a professor in Salk's Regulatory Biology Laboratory, said in a statement.

The scientists 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 — similar to a popular method of intermittent fasting that restricts eating to an eight-hour window each day.

They then ran medical tests to see what impact the time restriction on eating had on the mice. The results were published in the journal Cell Resources.

1. Frailty

Researchers were surprised to find that male mice on a TRE diet were able to “preserve and add muscle mass” and “improve muscle performance.” Although the result didn't hold for female mice, the researchers note that older adults at risk of falls could benefit from improved muscle performance. Panda said he hopes additional studies can answer whether TRE helps muscles repair and regenerate better, as well as what impact TRE has on muscle metabolism.

2. Fatty liver disease

Regardless of age, sex or weight-loss profile, the researchers found that TRE “strongly protected” mice against fatty liver disease, a condition that affects up to 100 million Americans.