Does Time Restricted Feeding Impact Glucose Levels?

Bottom-line:

• Many of my physical therapy patients are exploring weight loss through time restricted feeding, a form of calorie restriction based on eating during a certain window of time.
• Anecdotally, several patients of mine say this diet works for them; some research supports its use, while other data seems conflicting.
• A recent study shows that time restricted feeding may not impact blood glucose as much as we think. Learn more today!

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- Nutrition interventions for chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases)

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Transcript:

Hey y'all, Dr. Wells here from Nutritional Physical Therapy here in Florida. (0:05) It's beautiful and sunny, but I think the cold is on its way. (0:08) So anyhow, today I wanted to talk a little bit about time-restricted feeding.

 (0:12) I know many of us in the physical therapy and fitness world have run into people who have done (0:17) time-restricted feeding. I actually have some publications around the background of intermittent (0:21) fasting, which is kind of a type of time-restricted feeding. We saw it definitely improve longevity (0:28) in certain animal models, and ours was an insect model, but some of my patients have had really (0:33) good responses with time-restricted feeding.

Losing 20, 30, 40 pounds, for them it's a lot (0:37) easier to sort of follow a schedule of when they're eating, and it helps them reduce their (0:43) calorie intake. Meanwhile, I've had others that said they've tried it, just doesn't move the (0:47) needle, it doesn't do it for them. So what's the evidence say? Well, the research has been kind (0:51) of conflicted, and recently there was another study that just came out looking at does it (0:56) really matter when you're eating? And I used examine.com. If you guys haven't been to their (1:00) website, awesome information, and they put out a nice little study review.

If you take a look at (1:05) this, this is kind of a good example of what a time-restricted feeding pattern might look like (1:09) relative to the circadian rhythms of sleep. And obviously what their examine does, they (1:16) summarize some of this research, makes it more digestible, and it's really great. So if you haven't (1:19) checked it out, definitely encourage you.

But in their summary, what they found from in this (1:23) study, it was Peters et al, is that overall there was no major change in glucose when patients (1:29) shifted their dietary pattern earlier in the day, which was kind of conflicting compared to other (1:33) studies. And I don't know, I'm interested to hear what some of you have to say, because I know some (1:36) of our patients have continuous glucose monitors, or they monitor their blood sugar, and I've seen (1:41) patients that have shifted their dietary pattern earlier in the day tend to have better glucose (1:46) control. Now, how much is that? Probably pretty small, unless someone is like completely out of (1:51) control, and they're not, you know, almost like a diabetic that's not in a controlled regime.

So (1:57) the differences might be small, but I wonder if those small differences over time really build (2:02) up, and that's one thing I think this Peters et al study just doesn't really take into consideration. (2:07) So anyhow, I'd love to hear from you guys in terms of what you've seen in terms of time-restricted (2:11) feeding. Right now the evidence is conflicted.

I think really what I tell my patients is if it (2:15) works for them, and they're noticing they're eating less, and they're losing weight, then (2:18) that's the positive thing, right? If you notice it just doesn't work for their pattern, whether (2:23) it's their training schedule, or their work routine, then obviously that dietary pattern (2:28) is not something they need to stick with. So we talk a lot about diets in our continuing education (2:33) courses for physical therapists. Ours is specific for nutrition.

We don't train you to become a (2:38) dietician. We try to train you up to understand more about diets, more about supplements, so you (2:43) can engage, educate, and refer your patients to physicians and other dieticians for help. (2:48) Check them out at www.nutritionalphysicaltherapy.com, and have a great day.