Meal Timing to Improve Human Health
A special issue of Nutrients (ISSN 2072-6643). This special issue belongs to the section "Nutrition and Public Health".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2020) | Viewed by 172811
Special Issue Editors
Interests: nutrigenetics; chronobiology; including food timing and obesity
Interests: circadian rhythms; metabolism; cardiovascular; diabetes
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Whereas nutrition studies have primarily focused on “what” we eat, i.e., energy intake and macronutrient composition, currently, meal timing is being considered as a novel dimension of diet that may influence obesity, diabetes, and other cardiometabolic diseases. In 2013, a weight loss trial based on the Mediterranean diet conducted in a Spanish population showed that food timing was a predictive factor of weight loss success. Concurrently, a similar weight loss study with a 12-week follow-up showed that individuals consuming higher energy for dinner, compared to breakfast, lost less weight, and had worse glucose tolerance. These two studies, along with other complimentary animal studies, opened a new line of research-based on food timing and its impact on obesity, weight loss, and glucose tolerance.
New controlled laboratory studies are necessary to explain the mechanisms involved in the different response of late versus early eating to treatment.
The genetic makeup of people may also be involved. Former studies showed that only those who present a genetic variant in the Perilipin gene (PLIN1) were sensitive to food timing’s effect on weight loss. Furthermore, based on classical twin studies, genetics appear to influence a significant proportion of the variability in food timing, particularly breakfast. Thus, interventions related to food timing may be more effective when targeting afternoon/evening traits, such as lunch or dinner times, and when targetting individuals based on genotype.
This Special Issue welcomes original research and reviews of literature on the topic of “Meal Timing to improve Human Health” at mechanistic, observational, and epidemiological levels, under the following topics:
- Human dietary intervention studies that provide evidence for the effects of meal timing on human health;
- Studies of human genotypes metabolic phenotypes and/or across age to help to explain variation the effect of meal timing on obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk;
- Studies that provide mechanistic insights into the inter-relationship between meal timing, obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk, including studies performed in vitro or in animal models;
- Observational studies on the association between meal timing and cardiometabolic diseases.
“Meal timing” includes the following concepts:
- Clock and biological timing of food intake;
- Food timing within the (circadian) day;
- Intake frequency;
- Intake distribution across the day;
- Food intake window duration (and/or fasting duration);
- Food regularity;
- Intermittent fasting.
Prof. Marta Garaulet
Prof. Frank A.J.L. Scheer
Dr. Hassan S. Dashti
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- Food timing
- Meal timing
- Food frequency
- Circadian
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Metabolic syndrome
- Cardiovascular disease
- Cardiovascular risk
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