Nighttime fasting may foster weight loss

[n2doc]

By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
May 18, 2012, 5:00 a.m.
In an age of long commutes, late sports practices, endless workdays and 24/7 television programming, the image of Mom hanging up her dish towel at 7 p.m. and declaring "the kitchen is closed" seems a quaint relic of an earlier era.

It also harks back to a thinner America. And that may be no coincidence.

A new study, conducted on mice, hints at an unexpected contributor to the nation's epidemic of obesity — and, if later human studies bear it out, a possible way to have our cake and eat it too, with less risk of weight gain and the diseases that come with it.

Just eat your cake — or better yet, an apple — earlier. Then wait 16 hours, until breakfast the next morning, to eat again.

"We have to come up with something that is a simple alternative to calorie counting," said Satchidananda Panda, a regulatory biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla who led the study published online Thursday by the journal Cell Metabolism.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-fasting-diet-20120518,0,1060110.story

[kestrel91316]

1. That won't work for me. I am at work 10 hours a day. Breakfast is at 8, lunch is at about 1, and

dinner has to wait until I get home from work and can prepare it, so that's not usually until after 7.

But I'm only 7 lb over my ideal weight, so I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

[laconicsax]

2. I read the headline and thought:

"Isn't nighttime fasting the norm? Most people don't eat while they sleep."

[ladywnch]

3. when I finally stopped eating anything after 8 pm I started losing the weight

I'v'e dropped almost 40 lbs now. My chiropractor told me about this and I didin't listen for the longest time. I finally set a hard rule ( my husband doesn't even consider dinner before 8 and then deep fried if at all possible) I wouldn't eat dinner after 8 anymore.....period. He doesn't like it. We rarely eat together anymore, but I don't care. I feel great and look better!

[RagAss]

4. Good for you...I'm going to try this....

I just finished my midnight snack and I know that's all I need to eliminate to lose these 8 extra pounds I carry.

[CTyankee]

8. I dunno. People in Europe eat a LOT later than we Americans do!

In Spain, they don't even start dinner until 9 p.m. and it seems they are still at it at midnight. I swear I don't know how they get up the next day and go to work. They also drink wine with those evening meals and how they do that so late at night I'll never know. I like my wine with dinner but since my dinner is usually at 6:30, I'm finished with wine by 7:30. But the Spanish are into to their digestivo type drinks after dinner, like the Italians with their grappa. Those drinks would bore a hole in my stomach...

[safeinOhio]

5. I'm not a mouse, but

I'm a good guinea pig.

Best time for me is a fast from 8 pm until 12 noon. Started yesterday. Also started eating Indian gooseberries.

After a year of working midnights my numbers skyrocketed at my physical. Quit that job and now work 10 am until 6 pm, no 10 pm until 6 am.

[BadgerKid]

6. Well, yeah. If you don't continually excrete insulin

by eating at all hours of the day, you give your body a chance to run on fat-rich fuel more often.

[HereSince1628]

7. 16 hours of fasting...isn't night-time fasting. It's 2/3 of an entire solar cycle.

Meeting 1600 kcal demand within 8 hours everyday 7 days a week for a year would result in pathologic blood sugars for type II diabetics.

[MorningGlow]

9. Doesn't work for me

I eat dinner around 5:30 and not one morsel more passes my lips till the following morning. No effect.

[raps]

10. snacking

Eat dinner and just cut out all snacking before bedtime. Done wonders for me. Well, that and cutting down to one soda a week and eating better overall.