(Lisa Rapaport/ Everyday Health) — People with obesity and prediabetes who eat most of their meals within the first eight hours of the day may be able to lower their blood sugar levels even if they don’t lose weight, a small study suggests.
For the two-week study, researchers examined how the timing of meals impacted blood sugar in 10 participants with obesity and prediabetes, a condition that’s diagnosed when people have blood sugar that’s slightly elevated but not high enough to become full-blown type 2 diabetes.
All of the participants spent one of the weeks following their usual eating pattern, with half of their daily calories consumed after 4 p.m., and the other week doing a type of intermittent fasting known as early time-restricted eating where they ate 80 percent of their calories before 1 p.m.
Each participant received prepared meals with enough calories for them to maintain their current weight, and they all wore continuous blood sugar monitors throughout the study. (…)