Sub-Journal of "Nature": It doesn't matter how much you eat, the time you eat is important!

Young man, this is your food for a day.
Are you planning to dry it up in 3 hours, or do you honestly eat it in three meals, or "No, take all these things, I am restricting calorie intake!" Calorie restriction diet? This is a good thing
.

In the past few decades, scientists have discovered that long-term calorie intake has many benefits, the most eye-catching is weight loss, blood sugar control, prevention of aging-related diseases, etc.
[1-4]
.

However, Dudley W.
Lamming and his colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison tell you that calorie restriction is not simply about eating less, fasting is the soul of calorie restriction[5]! The article was recently published in "Nature · Metabolism"
.

A screenshot of the paper’s homepage.
Fasting.
Simply put, it means going hungry as planned! However, going hungry as planned is much more reliable than going hungry in vain
.

Fasting can make rational use of fats and carbohydrates in our body from the perspective of improving metabolism, thereby improving obesity and insulin resistance [6-7]
.

Hehe, how does it sound similar to the effect of a calorie restriction diet? Indeed, recently scientists have also realized this problem: "Hey! In our previous calorie restriction diet study, did we feed mice only once a day regardless of how calorie intake was restricted?"
.

Wouldn't it be: eat less + fast? That's right, in previous studies of calorie restriction, the two factors of reducing calorie intake and fasting were actually mixed
.

Therefore, we are all moving towards a misunderstanding-often pay more attention to how to reduce calorie intake from "how much to eat", but ignore the issue of "when to eat" fasting
.

So, whether "how much to eat" or "when to eat" is the soul of a calorie restricted diet, which one is fishing in troubled waters, or whether the two buffs are superimposed, it is still to be discussed
.

In order to observe the effects of "less eating" and "fasting" separately, the researchers selected a batch of C57BL/6J male mice and divided them into four groups, namely the control group (AL) and three groups of different calorie restriction diets.
Group: 🐭AL (control group): Without any dietary restrictions, 24h buffet
.

🐭Diluted AL (Eat less + keep eating): Compared with the control group, only the amount of feeding is reduced, but regardless of the meal time
.

🐭MF.
cr (Eat less + light fast): Arrange three meals in 12 hours, each meal is the same amount, and the meal is on time! 🐭CR (eating less + fasting for a long time): The mice are required to finish the day's meal at the first meal in the morning, then fast and enter the state of "cultivating immortality"
.

This is the mouse diet commonly used in previous calorie restriction studies
.

Regardless of the way of eating, the daily caloric intake of the last three groups of diet-restricted mice was controlled to be 30% less than that of the control group
.

Separate the restrictions clearly and prohibit overcharging
.

After 16 weeks of feeding, it was found that, compared with the control group, the mice with limited calorie intake achieved weight loss and fat loss, and the glucose tolerance was also improved, but the CR group mice were the same as the others.
The brothers who can't do it happily are healthier
.

The researchers found that compared with other mice with restricted diets, long-term fasting significantly improved the insulin sensitivity of the CR mice and controlled their blood sugar more effectively
.

Moreover, the MF.
cr group mice were also the same as the CR group mice, and fatty acid oxidation was significantly increased
.

In other words, under the "blessing" of fasting, the calorie restricted diet can more efficiently enhance the energy expenditure and substrate utilization of mice, improve the body's metabolism, and thus reduce fat and weight.

.

Although the glucose tolerance was improved, the insulin sensitivity of the CR group (black line) was significantly improved
.

Not only that, the researchers also found that the mice consume the same amount of calories, but they live differently, and the quality of life in the elderly is also quite different
.

The researchers selected a group of older C57BL/6J mice for group feeding
.

It was found that the same old mice, who ate less and strictly fasted their physique, did not become significantly weaker with age, and maintained good coat color and integrity of the intestinal barrier, and even recognized them.
The knowledge function is more complete
.

Most importantly, these mice live up to 8 months longer than mice that only rely on eating less to reach calorie restriction! Mice that eat less and fasted (black line) have better health in old age
.

Now that you have done this, it is better to make a bold guess: only fasting, but not controlling food intake, can the effect of improving metabolism and prolonging lifespan brought by calorie restriction diets be achieved? The researchers arranged for a group of mice (TR.
al) to be fed as much as the control group each day, but only to eat within 3 hours, and go hungry for the remaining 21 hours
.

as predicted! Without controlling caloric intake, just prolonging the fasting time is enough to improve the mice's metabolic problems such as insulin sensitivity
.

And after further exploring the mechanism, it is found that fasting is a necessary part of the changes in the metabolic molecular characteristics induced by the calorie restriction diet
.

Fasting mice: Come, I want to fight ten! (Top: Only reduce calorie intake; Bottom: Only fast) In general, Lamming and his colleagues found that fasting is the core of calorie-restricted diets that can improve metabolism and prolong life
.

Relying on "eating less" alone cannot effectively play the role of a calorie restriction diet.
It must be accompanied by long-term fasting
.

"For us, if we want to improve our health through calorie restriction, we should now shift our focus to the fasting diet instead of just reducing calorie intake as before
.

" They prompt
.

"Of course, the differences between individuals and species cannot be ignored
.

" Understood
.

In the future, when you feed the singular cake to your own dog and want to be lazy, you just pour a large pot at once, look at it, and eat it! References: [1]Green, CL, Lamming, DW & Fontana, L.
Molecular mechanisms of dietary restriction promoting health and longevity.
Nat.
Rev.
Mol.
Cell Biol.
https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41580-021 -00411-4 (2021).
[2]Das, SK et al.
Body-composition changes in the comprehensive assessment of long-term efects of reducing intake of energy (CALERIE)-2 study: a 2-year randomized controlled trial of calorie restriction in nonobese humans.
Am.
J.
Clin.
Nutr.
105, 913–927 (2017).
[3]Kraus, WE et al.
2 years of calorie restriction and cardiometabolic risk (CALERIE): exploratory outcomes of a multicentre, phase 2, randomised controlled trial.
Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol.
7,673–683 (2019).
[4]Balasubramanian, P.
, Howell, PR & Anderson, RM Aging and caloric restriction research: