Cell Metabolism
Volume 22, Issue 5, 3 November 2015, Pages 789-798
Journal home page for Cell Metabolism

Clinical and Translational Report
A Smartphone App Reveals Erratic Diurnal Eating Patterns in Humans that Can Be Modulated for Health Benefits

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2015.09.005Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • The daily eating pattern in healthy adults is highly variable from day to day

  • More than half of the adults eat for 15 hr or longer every day

  • Sleep duration parallels the fasting duration

  • Reducing the daily eating duration can contribute to weight loss

Summary

A diurnal rhythm of eating-fasting promotes health, but the eating pattern of humans is rarely assessed. Using a mobile app, we monitored ingestion events in healthy adults with no shift-work for several days. Most subjects ate frequently and erratically throughout wakeful hours, and overnight fasting duration paralleled time in bed. There was a bias toward eating late, with an estimated <25% of calories being consumed before noon and >35% after 6 p.m. “Metabolic jetlag” resulting from weekday/weekend variation in eating pattern akin to travel across time zones was prevalent. The daily intake duration (95% interval) exceeded 14.75 hr for half of the cohort. When overweight individuals with >14 hr eating duration ate for only 10–11 hr daily for 16 weeks assisted by a data visualization (raster plot of dietary intake pattern, “feedogram”) that we developed, they reduced body weight, reported being energetic, and improved sleep. Benefits persisted for a year.

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