Timely meals can prevent metabolic, musculoskeletal complications in women: Study

Study says that time restricted feeding could prevent fat gain, improved glucose clearance, and suppressed inflammation.

New Delhi: Grandmothers’ advice to eat lunch and dinner in time is not merely traditional wisdom: Indian scientists have found how adjusting meal timings can help prevent metabolic and musculoskeletal complications, particularly among women.

In a new study, biologists from Belagavi and Lucknow collaborated to show how aligning food intake with the body’s internal biological clock favourably influences fat accumulation, insulin resistance, bone health, and muscle integrity in postmenopausal women.

The researchers chose to study this group because of the dramatic transition a female body undergoes at the loss of reproductive life, often leading to multiple metabolic disorders. They wanted to find strategies to deal with such complications.

The team comprising scholars from KLE Academy of Higher Education and Research, Belagavi and CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow used a mouse model for the experiment in which rats’ ovaries were surgically removed to mimic postmenopausal oestrogen deficiency.

The scientists subsequently examined how time-restricted feeding influences fat accumulation, insulin resistance, bone health, and muscle integrity.

Animals subjected to unrestricted feeding showed many postmenopausal metabolic dysfunctions including a 37 per cent increase in fat mass, impaired glucose tolerance, elevated inflammatory markers, and significant deterioration in bone mineral density and muscle integrity.

In contrast, time restricted feeding completely prevented fat gain, improved glucose clearance by 26 per cent, and suppressed inflammation, despite identical food intake across groups.

Unlike typical diet approaches, time-restricted feeding didn’t reduce total food/calorie intake. Instead, it confined eating to the body’s natural active hours - daytime in humans and nighttime in rats - when metabolism is most efficient.

“This is one of the first studies to show that a simple change in meal timing, without reducing calories, can deliver multi-system benefits that rival pharmacological interventions,” said team leader Madan M Godbole, a veteran researcher at KLE Academy.

The team also compared the efficacy of time-restricted feeding with liraglutide, a clinically approved GLP-1 receptor agonist, used for weight loss and metabolic control.

Food intake aligning with the circadian rhythm demonstrated effects comparable to, and in certain parameters even exceeding those of liraglutide, particularly in preserving bone health and muscle mass, positioning it as a behavioral therapeutic with drug-like efficacy.

“The fact that time-restricted feeding performs on par with a weight-loss drug underscores its translational potential,” said Godbole, a Padma award recipient and former professor at AIIMS Delhi and Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow.

Naibedya Chattopadhyay, a senior team member from CDRI, said, “These findings are especially relevant for postmenopausal women, a population that faces increased risks of obesity, insulin resistance, osteoporosis, and sarcopenia due to oestrogen deficiency.”

“While diet does matter, diet timing is equally important. But if one has to undergo a lifestyle change, it should be done in a graded manner,” Godbole said.

The study has appeared online in the Journal of Nutrition.