When You Eat May Matter as Much as What You Eat, Study Suggests
Could when you eat be as important as what you eat when it comes to boosting brain health? A new study is revealing how meal timing may protect the brain as you age. Read on for all of the details of this latest research.
Could When You Eat Make You Smarter?
A new study found that when people eat may play a role in preserving cognitive function during the aging process. The preliminary research out of Rutgers University showed that limiting meals and snacks to a time period of eight to nine hours each day may work to improve some thinking and problem-solving abilities. The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition.
The limited study looked at 47 women between the ages of 50 and 70 who were overweight or obese. What they found is that those subjects who restricted their eating to an eight- to nine-hour window each day enjoyed greater capabilities on some cognitive tests when compared to the women who followed the same reduced-calorie diet but over a standard 12-hour eating period.
The clinical trial lasted for six months. All of the participants were required to reduce their daily caloric intake by approximately 500 calories. Of the 47 participants, 26 were told to consume their food within a period of less than nine hours each day. The recommended time frame for eating was between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm. The average eating window landed at 8.2 hours. This compared to an average window of 12.3 hours for the remaining subjects.
The average weight loss of each group was roughly the same. Regardless of how long the eating window was, the participants lost an average of approximately 15 pounds.
What was different was how the time-restricted group performed on cognitive tests. The time-restricted group performed meaningfully better on tests that measured problem solving and spatial planning. This group also was more accurate on memory and learning tests. The research found no difference between the control group and the time-restricted group on tests that measured reaction time.
Other Benefits of Meal Timing
A boost in brain health is not the only benefit of restricted meal timing. According to lead investigator Sue Shapses, a professor at Rutgers University and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, "Losing weight alone will ward off some of the aging-related cognitive decline, and these data suggest that there may be additional benefits if you stop eating 4 hours prior to going to sleep and reduce food intake to 8-9 hours per day."
Shapses noted that the cognitive function improvements were modest when stopping eating at least 4 hours before bedtime but that participants may have remembered information better while also seeing fewer mistakes connected to memory and problem-solving skills. The study's researchers said that future endeavors will look at why it is that meal timing may influence brain health. Some of the possible explanations include how this timing impacts inflammation in the body, metabolic rates, circadian rhythms, and nutrient-sensing pathways.
It is important to note that the findings are still subject to the full peer review process. This process is needed to prepare the data for publication in a scientific journal. Researchers also note that the sample size was small, potentially limiting the results on a wider scale. Larger studies will need to be conducted to confirm these preliminary results.
However, the early data supports the growing body of research that suggests the timing of your food intake may influence a variety of different long-term health impacts, including cognitive function.
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