Would you like to live longer? Eat all your meals in a 12-hour window AND cut calories by 40%, experts say
- Mice fed a reduced-calorie diet at night lived 35 percent longer than expected
- A similar diet for humans would result in them eating only 12 hours a day
- Fasting is popular with celebs, but experts say it hasn’t made the mice lose weight
Eat all of your meals in a 12-hour window if you want to live longer, scientists say.
Restricting mice’s food intake to the most active hours of their day increased their lifespan by a third.
While calorie restriction alone only helped them live an average of 10 percent longer.
It suggests that the combination of a low-calorie diet and fasting is optimal for longevity.
Researchers claimed the results show you don’t get “the full benefit” if you diet but eat late at night.
Eating within a strict time window known as an intermittent fasting diet has become one of the hottest fitness fads in recent years. Celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman are said to be devotees of intermittent fasting.
Jennifer Aniston (right) and Nicole Kidman (left) are two celebrities who have reportedly used intermittent fasting
Restricting mice’s food intake to the most active hours of their day extended their lifespan by a third (stock)
What is intermittent fasting?
Intermittent fasting alternates days of fasting with days of normal eating.
Intermittent fasting diets generally fall into two categories – time-restricted diets that limit meal times to 6-8 hours a day, also known as the 16:8 diet, and 5:2 intermittent fasting.
The 16:8 diet is a form of intermittent fasting, also known as time restricted eating.
Adherents to the diet fast for 16 hours a day and eat whatever they want for the remaining eight hours — typically between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.
This may be more tolerable than the well-known 5:2 diet, in which adherents limit their calories to 500 to 600 a day two days a week and then eat normally for the remaining five days.
In addition to weight loss, 16:8 intermittent fasting is said to improve blood sugar control, boost brain function, and help us live longer.
Many prefer to eat between noon and 8 p.m. as this means they only have to fast overnight and skip breakfast, but can still eat lunch and dinner along with some snacks.
When you eat out, it’s best to opt for healthy options like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
And drink water and unsweetened beverages.
Disadvantages of the fasting plan can be that people exaggerate the hours they can eat, leading to weight gain.
Digestive problems, hunger, tiredness and weakness can also be the result in the long term.
dr Joseph Takahashi, a molecular biologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland, USA, and the study’s lead author, is so confident in the results that he introduced a 12-hour restricted diet himself.
In the study, published in the journal Science, Dr. Takahashi studied the effects of both diet and feeding timing on about 500 mice over a four-year period.
The scientists used automatic feeders to control both the amount the mice could eat and when.
Some rodents were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, while others limited their daily calories to 30 to 40 percent of their normal diet.
These groups were also divided by feeding time, with some having 24-hour access to food.
Others were fed over a two hour period at the beginning of the night or day and finally over a 12 hour period during the day or night.
Mice were weighed every few weeks and their activity levels were monitored for signs of aging.
Once the mice began reducing their food intake or activity levels, they were monitored more closely for signs of age-related ailments.
The researchers found that mice fed the low-calorie diet at night, for either a two-hour or 12-hour period, lived the longest.
After all of the mice died, the scientists performed autopsies to assess their general health and collect tissue samples for further analysis.
Age genes associated with inflammation in the body tend to become more active as mice age, while genes that regulate metabolism become less active, causing or contributing to a range of age-related diseases.
Based on their analysis, the team led by Dr. Takahashi found that mice fed an overnight calorie-restricted diet exhibited fewer of these age-related changes.
Mice are nocturnal creatures and are therefore most active at night.
The researchers said the results would be reversed when applied to humans.
The study is the latest to herald the importance of circadian rhythm, the body’s natural clock, to health.
dr Rafael de Cabo, an expert on human aging at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, said the new study shows people should not only think about how much they eat, but when.
‘Even if you’re restricting your calories, you’re not [eating at the right times]you’re not getting the full benefits of calorie restriction,” he said.