Nutrition targeting by food timing: Time-related dietary approaches to combat obesity and metabolic syndrome

Effective nutritional guidelines for reducing abdominal obesity and metabolic syndrome are urgently needed. Over the years, many different dietary regimens have been studied as possible treatment alternatives. The efficacy of low-calorie diets, diets with different proportions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates, traditional healthy eating patterns, and evidence-based dietary approaches were evaluated. Reviewing literature published in the last 5 y reveals that these diets may improve risk factors associated with obesity and metabolic syndrome. However, each diet has limitations ranging from high dropout rates to maintenance difficulties. In addition, most of these dietary regimens have the ability to attenuate some, but not all, of the components involved in this complicated multifactorial condition. Recently, interest has arisen in the time of day foods are consumed (food timing). Studies have examined the implications of eating at the right or wrong time, restricting eating hours, time allocation for meals, and timing of macronutrient consumption during the day. In this paper we review new insights into well-known dietary therapies as well as innovative time-associated dietary approaches for treating obesity and metabolic syndrome. We discuss results from systematic meta-analyses, clinical interventions, and animal models.