When you eat, might be just as important as what you eat, according to new research from the Salk Institute.
GUEST:Dr. Sanchidananda, lead author of study at Salk Institute for Biological Studies
You may want to think twice when you head to the refrigerator for that late night snack. New research at Salk Institute finds when you eat may be just as important as what you eat. Researchers at Salk Institute for Biological Studies found that regular eating times extend the daily fasting period and may override the adverse effects of a high-fat diet. Dr. Sanchidananda Panda who led the study says in their research on mice, on they saw lower cholesterol, body fat and glucose levels when they regulated the amount of time the mice were fed. This is in spite of the fact that the two groups of mice were fed high-fat diets. (The other group of mice were allowed to eat the same amount of food over a 24-hour period)
"It's a dogma that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and that we should eat frequently when we are awake," says Satchidananda Panda, an associate professor in the Regulatory Biology Laboratory and senior author of the paper. "Our findings, however, suggest that regular eating times and fasting for a significant number of hours a day might be beneficial to our health."
Dr. Panda tells KPBS metabolic studies on mice transfer well to humans, so the next step is to determine if humans will have the same results when limiting the amount of time a day we eat to 10-12 hours a day, allowing our body to naturally fast and recharge.
The study is published in Cell Metabolism.
