Circadian Nutrition: Could Meal Timing Be the Key to Fighting Fatigue?
Fatigue is a common complaint in today’s fast-paced world, affecting muscle strength, endurance, and overall energy levels. Recent research has highlighted the potential of circadian nutrition—strategically aligning eating patterns with the body’s internal clock—to combat fatigue and improve health.
A study by Dr. Min-Dian Li from Southwest Hospital in China sheds light on the link between meal timing and fatigue. The research focuses on time-restricted feeding (TRF), an eating pattern where food intake is limited to specific hours of the day, creating feeding and fasting cycles. By coordinating these cycles with the body’s circadian rhythms, TRF can optimize the interplay between the brain and muscles, reducing physical and mental fatigue.
Key Findings
Night Restricted Feeding (NRF): Similar to 16:8 intermittent fasting in humans, where eating occurs during an 8-hour window, NRF enhances muscle endurance and cognitive performance in mice on high-fat diets.
Day Restricted Feeding (DRF): Comparable to fasting during Ramadan, DRF improves muscle endurance in lean mice throughout the day.
Underlying Mechanisms: The study identified that muscle clocks regulate key metabolic processes involving proteins like PPAR and Perilipin-5, which are crucial for muscle metabolism and contraction.
Why Does Timing Matter?
Fatigue is often linked to disruptions in circadian rhythms, the body’s natural 24-hour cycle that regulates sleep, wakefulness, and metabolism. Aligning eating habits with these rhythms helps maintain balance, boosting muscle performance and cognitive function.
A Promising Lifestyle Intervention
Clinical trials have shown that circadian nutrition is safe and effective for managing metabolic diseases. This approach could now extend to addressing fatigue, offering a simple and practical solution for an increasingly fatigued population.
The growing body of evidence highlights the importance of understanding how meal timing interacts with our internal clocks. As research continues, circadian nutrition could become a cornerstone of strategies to reduce fatigue and improve overall well-being.
By embracing the science of circadian rhythms and meal timing, individuals may find a new “elixir” for combating fatigue and leading more energetic lives.
Scientists from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Max Planck Institute are spotlighting low glycemic index (Low GI) rice as a potential game-changer in the fight against type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting millions worldwide.
What Is Low GI Rice?
The glycemic index (GI) measures how quickly foods raise blood sugar levels. High-GI foods, like white rice, are digested quickly, causing sharp spikes in blood sugar—a significant factor in diabetes risk. Low-GI foods digest more slowly, releasing sugar gradually and helping to control blood sugar levels.
Most white rice, a staple food for billions, has a high GI of 70–94. Low GI rice, with a GI below 55, is designed to be a healthier alternative while still maintaining the flavour and texture people love.
Why It Matters
Diabetes is a growing health crisis worldwide, with over 537 million people affected in 2021—a number expected to exceed 780 million by 2045. While Asia faces the greatest impact due to its high rice consumption, other regions like Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East are also at risk as rice becomes a larger part of their diets. Introducing Low GI rice could help slow the rise of diabetes across the globe.
Health and Economic Benefits
Low GI rice has the potential to make a big difference. By reducing blood sugar spikes, it can help prevent diabetes and support better health for people who already have the disease. It could also open up new markets for farmers, offering a premium product for health-conscious consumers.
Some countries, like Bangladesh and the Philippines, have already started using Low GI rice varieties that were originally bred for climate resilience. However, there’s still work to do—early versions of Low GI rice often have a firmer texture, which some people find less appealing. Researchers are working to improve this while keeping the rice affordable and easy to grow.
A Healthier Future
Low GI rice isn’t just about rice. The science behind it could be applied to other staple foods like wheat and potatoes, helping to create healthier options worldwide. Governments, scientists, and businesses are working together to make Low GI rice more available, affordable, and popular.
As diabetes continues to rise, Low GI rice offers a simple, practical way to improve diets and health worldwide. By bringing healthier choices to people’s tables, this innovation could help build a future where fewer people face the burden of diabetes.
Study finds how the effects of famine can be passed from one generation to the next.
You are what you eat, as the adage goes. However, a new study from Tulane University found that what’s missing from your diet may also impact the health of your descendants across multiple generations.
Recent research supports the idea that famine in one generation can lead to harmful genetic outcomes in the next. However, questions about how many generations could be affected when an ancestor endures a nutritional crisis have persisted.
In a study published in Heliyon, Tulane researchers found that when paired mice were fed a low-protein diet, their offspring had lower birthweights and smaller kidneys over the next four generations, leading risk factors for chronic kidney disease and hypertension.
Researchers found that correcting the diets in offspring had no impact, and subsequent generations continued to be born with low nephron counts, the vital filtration units that help kidneys remove waste from the bloodstream. Though further work remains to determine if the findings translate to humans, the outcomes underscore the potential for food scarcity or malnutrition to result in decades of adverse health outcomes.
“It’s like an avalanche,” said lead author Giovane Tortelote, assistant professor of pediatric nephrology at Tulane University School of Medicine. “You would think that you can fix the diet in the first generation so the problem stops there, but even if they have a good diet, the next generations – grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren – they may still be born with lower birth weight and low nephron count despite never facing starvation or a low-protein diet.”
Correcting the diet in any of the generations failed to return kidney development in offspring to normal levels.
While maternal nutrition is crucial to an infant’s development, the study found that first-generation offspring were negatively impacted regardless of whether the mother or the father ate a protein-deficient diet.
This novel finding of how diet can have a transgenerational impact on kidney development is one of the latest in the field of epigenetics, the study of how environmental factors can impact gene expression without changing the DNA sequence.
The researchers studied four generations of offspring with nephron counts beginning to show signs of normalizing by the third and fourth generations. Tortelote said further research is needed to determine which generation returns to proper kidney development – and why the trait is passed on in the first place.
“The mother’s diet is absolutely very important, but it appears there’s also something epigenetically from the father that governs proper kidney development,” Tortelote said.
The study also illuminates further understanding of the underlying causes of chronic kidney disease, the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S.
“If you’re born with fewer nephrons, you are more prone to hypertension, but the more hypertension you have, the more you damage the kidney, so it’s a horrible cycle and a public health crisis that could affect people across 50 to 60 years if we apply this to humans’ lifespans,” Tortelote said. “There are two main questions now: Can we fix it, and how do we fix it?”
The active components of these elements of the Mediterranean diet show promise in treating atherosclerosis and reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Cardiovascular problems are the leading cause of disease and mortality worldwide. Plant extracts, rich in bioactive compounds, have contributed significantly to the development of drugs, as they offer therapeutic potential for several of these diseases. However, their use is limited by possible side effects, drug-drug interactions and the lack of scientific evidence from quality preclinical and clinical studies.
During the 2023/24 academic year, biologist Mateu Anguera Tejedor made an essential contribution in this field with his final year Biology degree project at the UAB, tutored by the then postdoctoral researcher at the Institut de Neurociències of the UAB (INc-UAB) and current lecturer at the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences of the University of Barcelona, René Delgado.
The study, recently published as a scientific article in the journal Food Bioscience, provides an overview of the mechanisms of action and the preclinical and clinical evidence, as well as the adverse effects of essential bioactive compounds derived from a group of selected Mediterranean plants which form part of the Mediterranean diet.
Among the species analysed, six representative plants and their major active components are reported: garlic (Allium sativum, with diallyl trisulfide, allicin and S-allyl [cysteine]), hawthorn shrub (Crataegus monogyna, with quercetin, apigenin and chlorogenic acid), saffron (Crocus sativus, with crocin and safranal), olive (Olea europaea, with oleic acid, oleuropein, hydroxytyrosol and oleacein), rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus, with rosmarinic acid and carnosic acid) and grapevine (Vitis vinifera, with resveratrol). The review focused on the most critical pharmacological mechanisms, including their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and vasodilatory actions, and their regulation of lipid metabolism, which may be relevant for conditions such as atherosclerosis and hypertension. The results show that these active components are promising in potentially treating atherosclerosis and could reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
In addition to summarising the current scientific evidence, the study provides a reference guide for future research by identifying potential knowledge gaps and offering timely recommendations for designing preclinical and clinical studies in this area. Key areas for future exploration include the long-term safety of these compounds, the evaluation of their synergistic effects when consumed as part of a Mediterranean diet, and the need to establish standardised protocols in controlled clinical settings. By broadening the scientific basis of these traditional remedies, this review may help pave the way for their use as active pharmaceutical ingredients in developing future phytomedicines.
Combined ingestion could alter the efficacy of individual extracts.
The research team believes that using these natural extracts is promising. Still, their combined ingestion could influence therapeutic outcomes due to the “matrix effect”, which implies that dietary components can alter the efficacy of each extract, either enhancing or diminishing their benefits. Understanding this interaction is essential to optimise the therapeutic application of these plant extracts in a dietary context. It is vital to recognise that there is often a lack of robust evidence of the impact of natural extracts in humans, and therefore, researchers caution that “the label of ‘natural’ does not guarantee safety, and this emphasises the need to prioritise pharmacokinetic, toxicological and clinical studies to evaluate their efficacy, safety and efficiency in comparison with existing drugs”.
Consumption of bread supplemented with jabuticaba peel flour, which is rich in fibre and antioxidants, lowers glycemic peaks and prolongs satiety.
Researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in São Paulo, Brazil, have developed a sourdough bread formulation enriched with jabuticaba peel. This bread may serve as an alternative for individuals with diabetes and others who need to manage their blood sugar levels. The research findings and test results are published in the journal Foods.
The article highlights that bread’s high carbohydrate content can significantly increase blood sugar levels, risking hyperglycemia. As a result, there is a growing demand for healthier bread options. Artisanal bakers are responding by diversifying their products with recipes that offer added nutritional value and utilize fermentation methods that promote a milder glycemic response.
According to the article’s data, adding jabuticaba peel flour increased the bread’s fibre content by more than 50%. It raised its antioxidant capacity by between 1.35 times and 3.53 times, depending on the proportion of jabuticaba peel flour added to the formulation. This supplementation increased nutrients’ bioavailability and enhanced the final product’s nutritional composition.
The researchers conducted a crossover trial to assess the glycemic peak (the highest blood sugar level reached) after consumption of regular bread made by the long fermentation method (which tends to induce a lower glycemic peak) and consumption a week later of bread containing jabuticaba peel flour. Blood sugar peaked 30 minutes after ingesting the regular bread without jabuticaba peel flour, remaining high for another 15 minutes and then trending down. In the case of the bread supplemented with jabuticaba peel flour, the peak was lower, occurring 45 minutes after ingestion, and blood sugar fell slowly for two and a quarter hours.
Metabolism
Blood sugar rises after ingestion of bread and other carbohydrate-rich foods. Digestion releases glucose, telling the pancreas to secrete insulin, which induces a return to prior blood sugar levels. Flaws in this process lead to health problems, and it is essential to observe the extent to which blood sugar spikes in response to eating.
“If we can lower the spikes in sugar and insulin levels that occur after meals, we reduce the likelihood of developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome. For individuals already experiencing hyperglycemia, managing these post-meal spikes can decrease the risk of heart disease. Additionally, this approach can help extend the lifespan of insulin-producing cells,” said Bruno Geloneze.
The thesis supervisor, who formed the basis for the article, noted that the main challenge in producing the bread for the trials was effectively deploying the technology while preserving its nutritional and functional value. Jabuticaba peel flour has unique sensory characteristics, and its inclusion needs to be evaluated carefully.”
“Jabuticaba peel flour has particular sensory characteristics, and its inclusion had to be evaluated concerning both the technological characteristics of breadmaking and the processing and conservation of the bioactive compounds involved,” she said.
Conservation is relevant because the improvement in blood sugar control and insulin response is associated with the phenolic compounds in jabuticaba peel, such as anthocyanins, which account for the fruit’s dark purple colour. Therefore, it is essential to avoid their “loss” during processing.
Another important finding relates to satiety. The participants felt fuller 60 minutes after eating the bread with jabuticaba peel flour than after they ate the control bread. The authors of the article note that satiety is generally found to improve when blood sugar returns to baseline more slowly, as it does with foods with a low glycemic index.
Antioxidant capacity was monitored for three hours after the bread was consumed. After the bread with jabuticaba peel flour was consumed, the neutralization of free radicals increased significantly and lasted longer.
“This improvement in antioxidant capacity is important because the development of metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the ageing process, involve protein oxidation mechanisms in the body. The antioxidant capacity of a food can be beneficial in all these mechanisms,” Geloneze said.
Another significant finding was the extension of shelf life to seven days, which, according to the researchers, showed that the bacteria in jabuticaba peel and metabolites formed during the fermentation process can act as natural preservatives in long-fermentation products, inhibiting the growth of pathogenic microorganisms.
Jabuticaba
The article notes that researchers have focused in recent years on the inclusion of ingredients with high biological value in food products, especially agroindustrial byproducts, given the large quantities produced, their nutraceutical potential, and the environmental impact associated with their disposal.
Consumption of jabuticaba (Plinia jaboticaba) and other red and purple berries is known to help prevent or delay the emergence of non-transmissible chronic diseases. “Jabuticaba peel contains phenolic compounds and fibres that have been shown in several studies to contribute to the control of blood sugar and cholesterol,” Maróstica said.
The juice of this berry has also been shown to reduce insulin resistance and increase the production of GLP-1. This hormone helps regulate digestion, satiety and glycemia (as emulated by medications such as semaglutide and liraglutide).
The results of all this research are promising, and the group comprising scientists from UNICAMP’s medical and food engineering schools continue to investigate the fruit’s bioactive compounds. They are now conducting in vivo trials with animal models to find out whether and how these compounds can combat depression and help prevent colorectal cancer.
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