Researchers from Bond University in Robina, Australia, have found that certain meal timing strategies—like time-restricted eating, eating fewer meals, and consuming more calories earlier in the day—can lead to modest weight loss over a 12-week period.
Their study reviewed past research on these strategies to understand how effective they might be in managing weight.
Obesity affects about one in eight people worldwide, significantly raising the risk of health problems like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers.
Traditional weight loss methods often focus on cutting calories or restricting specific foods, but meal timing offers a different approach.
By adjusting eating habits to align with natural body rhythms, meal timing could help improve how the body processes food, balance appetite hormones, and reduce evening snacking, which tends to lead to weight gain.
The Bond University team analyzed 29 randomized clinical trials involving a total of 2,485 adults, with an average age of 44 and a BMI of 33. Around 69% of the participants were women.
Three types of meal timing strategies were examined: time-restricted eating (TRE), reducing the number of meals, and changing calorie distribution to eat more in the morning.
Results showed that TRE, where participants ate all their meals within a set window of hours each day, led to an average weight loss of 1.37 kilograms (around 3 pounds) compared to control groups.
Eating fewer meals per day was associated with a weight loss of 1.85 kilograms, while consuming most calories earlier in the day led to an average weight reduction of 1.75 kilograms.
While these results indicate some weight loss, the effect sizes were small, meaning the impact on overall health and long-term weight management may be limited.
There were also small improvements in metabolic health for those following TRE. These included slight decreases in fasting blood sugar and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), both of which are markers related to diabetes risk.
However, these changes were minor, so the researchers are uncertain about their real-life impact.
One key issue in the study was the reliability of the evidence. Many studies included in the analysis were at high risk of bias.
For example, 76% of the trials showed some risk of bias, and 66% showed a high risk, mostly because participants couldn’t be “blinded” to their diets—they knew which eating pattern they were following.
Also, most of the outcomes were self-reported, meaning the results may not be entirely accurate. Given these limitations, the researchers suggest that more high-quality research is needed to confirm these findings.
The Bond University team believes that with larger, more rigorous studies, we could better understand the real effects of meal timing on weight and metabolic health.
Future studies would benefit from larger sample sizes, consistent meal timing methods, and longer follow-up periods to determine if these strategies provide significant, lasting health benefits.
For now, meal timing may offer a simpler, although modest, approach to weight loss and metabolic health, but it’s unlikely to be a cure-all solution.
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The research findings can be found in JAMA Network Open.
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