A combination of time-restricted eating and HIIT improves health measures in obese women

Both time-restricted eating (TRE) and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) have been shown to improve cardiometabolic health in people who are overweight and at risk of serious disease. Now a randomized, controlled trial has tested whether combining these two approaches is more effective than either of them on their own. The results show that the combination improved the average long-term glycemic control compared to a no-intervention control group and induced 2- fold greater reductions in fat mass and visceral fat area compared with each intervention in isolation.

The trial had four arms: HIT alone, TRE alone, the TRE-HIIT combination, and a control group. A total of 131 women were enrolled, with 32 or 33 in each arm. All of them had overweight or obesity and had risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. TRE was defined as consuming all daily calories within a 10-hour time window. HIIT was defined as exercise done at 90% of maximum heart rate for 35 minutes, three times per week. The exercise sessions were supervised by the investigators, and the participants were asked to log their first and last calories every day.

Several measures were taken both before and after the study, including the participants' blood pressure, body mass index, fat and cholesterol levels in the blood, and several measures of blood glucose and insulin levels.

The researchers found that the participants who combined TRE and HIIT were able to improve their average long-term glycemic control measured as HbA1c. They were also able to effectively reduce fat mass and visceral fat and increase their cardiorespiratory fitness measured as peak oxygen uptake. However, there were no statistically significant differences in blood lipids, appetite hormones, or vital signs after any of the interventions compared with the control group.

Another important finding from the study was that adherence to the study was high.

Reference:

Trine Moholdt et al,Cell Metabolism, Haganes et al. "Time-restricted eating and exercise training improve HbA1c and body composition in women with overweight/obesity: A randomized controlled trial" https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(22)00393-X