The Effect of Time-restricted Eating on Liver Metabolism (TREL)

University of California (UC) Davis

Status

Completed

Conditions

Obesity

NAFLD

Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases

Treatments

Behavioral: Time restricted eating

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT04997486

1757716

Details and patient eligibility

About

Numerous studies have established the role of nutrition on obesity and its related metabolic diseases, which together affect a billion individuals worldwide. Evidence indicate that meal timing regulates numerous metabolic processes suggesting that meal time manipulation may be a simple intervention against obesity and its metabolic diseases. Time-restricted eating (TRE) is a dietary manipulation that involves restricting food intake to 6-10 h/day with no energy intake the rest of the day. In rodents, TRE significantly decreases hepatic steatosis and dyslipidemia, while it supports a healthier hepatic cellular content even without caloric restriction, potentially by alternating activation of nutrient sensing mechanisms and effects on circadian oscillations. However, an understanding of the effect of TRE on liver health in people is not clear. Accordingly, we will conduct a randomized controlled trial in people with overweight/obesity and hepatic steatosis to determine the effect of 9 h TRE for 12 weeks, on key metabolic outcomes in liver health: 1) intrahepatic triglyceride content using magnetic resonance imaging; 2) de novo lipogenesis during fasting and postprandial conditions using administration of deuterated water in conjunction with mathematical modeling. The proposed study will enable us to determine the effect of meal timing on metabolic function in people with NAFLD.

Enrollment

5 patients

Sex

All

Ages

25 to 75 years old

Volunteers

No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

age 25-75 years
men and women
body mass index 25-45 kg/m2
clinical diagnosis of NAFLD
self-reported habitual eating period more than or equal to 14 h per day.

Exclusion criteria

shift worker, recent or expected travel crossing time zones
fasting >12-h/day more than once a week

*> once a week no food intake after 18:00
habitually waking up before 04:00 and sleeping before 22:30
unstable weight (>5% change in the last 2 months)
diabetes mellitus or alcoholic liver disease
sleep disorder
history of or current eating disorder
cancer in last 5 years
conditions that render subject unable to complete all testing procedures
use of medications that affect the study outcome measures or increase the risk of study procedures and that cannot be temporarily discontinued
smoking or illegal drug use
pregnant or breastfeeding
having metals in the body
cognitive impairment
gastrointestinal or bariatric surgery that affects nutrient digestion and absorption unable to grant voluntary informed consent or comply with the study instructions individuals who are not yet adults (infants, children, teenagers)
individuals that are unable to lie motionless on the MRI scanner for an hour or *have tattoos or tattooed eyeliner
alcohol abuse
prisoners

Trial design

Primary purpose

Treatment

Allocation

Randomized

Interventional model

Parallel Assignment

Masking

Single Blind

5 participants in 3 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Subjects will consume all meals/snacks during a \~15-h daily eating period (\~9-h fasting). The prescribed energy intake will be monitored and adjusted as needed to achieve weight maintenance.

TRE isocaloric

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects will consume all meals/snacks during a \~9-h daily eating period (\~15-h fasting). The prescribed energy intake will be monitored and adjusted as needed to achieve weight maintenance.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Time restricted eating

TRE ad libitum

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects will consume all meals/snacks during a \~9-h daily eating period (\~15-h fasting) without any other dietary advice.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Time restricted eating