Time-Controlled Eating Resets Our Body Clocks

Many have heard of the importance of circadian clocks regulating our sleep/wake cycles but did you know that each of the cells in our body also has its own clock? Dr. Steven Grundy explains how those cellular clocks are set to our daily fluctuations of feeding and what happens when we disrupt our natural rhythm.

• These various clocks expect an influx of glucose from the food we eat during set hours of the day and expect an empty belly (and no digestion work) during other times of the day. Our genes direct a lot of resources toward the energy (ATP) production line after glucose arrives, while other times are set aside for rest and repair.

• If you eat late, your body is asked to digest and process food during a time that it should be flushing out dead cells. If we don’t give our cells enough “downtime” to rest and rejuvenate, our whole system gets out of whack.

Dr. Grundy explains that studies of Muslim volunteers fasting for Ramadan have shown that time-controlled eating can bring significant health benefits, including suppressing cancer genes and turning on genes that help regulate insulin, metabolize sugars and fats, and protect against neuron damage—those are some awesome benefits!

• Another study with human volunteers done by circadian researcher Dr. Satchin Panda from the Salk Institute showed that reducing our “feeding” time to ten hours (leaving fourteen hours of non-eating) conferred huge benefits over eating and digesting for fifteen hours.

• Dr. Panda found that even slightly overweight people who reduced their eating window to 10 hours reset their cellular clocks and lost weight, becoming more energetic, sleeping better, improving their mood, and sharpening their thinking in just a few months.

Dr. Grundy argues that shortening our eating window can improve mood and cognition through a process called hormesis, where our brain activates stress response pathways that help the brain cope with stress and disease. He says our brain gets sharper and clearer in large part to help us find food during periods of stress. Pretty wild how evolution can still impact our optimal eating window!!

**Content provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is derived from information from Dr. Steven Grundy’s Energy Paradox book. It is not to be considered medical advice.**