Comparative study of time-restricted eating on body composition and metabolic parameters in climacteric women with obesity: analysis of a pre-post intervention.

OBJECTIVE

The physiological changes inherent to the climacteric period can trigger or aggravate overweight/obesity, among several other health disorders. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of time-restricted eating (TRE) on body composition and cardiometabolic parameters in climacteric women with obesity submitted to caloric restriction (CR) through a hypocaloric diet.

METHODS

We conducted an analysis of a clinical trial in a pre-post design that included adult climacteric women with obesity. Participants were divided into two groups: hypocaloric diet control group (n = 30) - with hypocaloric diet and free meal times, and hypocaloric diet and time-restricted eating group (HTRE) (n = 27) - with hypocaloric diet and TRE (fasting from 7  pm to 7  am ), for 10 weeks. Anthropometric and biochemical parameters were evaluated before and after the intervention period. A significance level of P  < 0.05 was considered for all cases.

RESULTS

Both groups showed a reduction in all anthropometric parameters, but without significant difference ( P  = 0.34) between groups. However, some metabolic parameters were significantly highlighted in the HTRE such as cholesterol level normalization (HTRE, 181.76 ± 34.20 mg/dL) and a decrease in plasma atherogenicity ( P  = 0.02), glycated hemoglobin ( P  < 0.001), estimated mean glucose ( P  = 0.02), and alanine aminotransferase ( P  = 0.02), unlike the hypocaloric diet control group, which did not show such significance.

CONCLUSIONS

In this study, from the perspective of body composition, similar changes were observed between the group subjected to CR alone and the group subjected to CR combined with a 12-hour overnight fast. However, there was an indication of superior improvement in glycemic and lipid parameters in the group subjected to the 12-hour overnight fast. These findings suggest the potential for TRE, as implemented, to have positive effects on reducing cardiovascular risk and other chronic metabolic diseases.