Biomedical journalJan 5, 2025

How Disrupting Daily Feeding and Fasting Patterns May Affect Metabolism, Immunity, Cancer Risk, and Thinking

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 2, 2026

Abstract

Circadian disruption (CD) is associated with an increased risk of health alterations, including metabolic syndrome and sleep disruption.

The central clock in the brain coordinates daily rhythms with peripheral oscillators in the body.
Changes in the timing of light exposure and feeding can lead to disturbances in circadian rhythms.
Chronic phase misalignments between the central and peripheral clocks may contribute to various health issues.
Animal models of CD show links to conditions such as obesity, chronic inflammation, and cognitive decline.
Epidemiological studies suggest similar health risks in humans with altered circadian rhythms.

Simplified

The circadian system is composed by a central hypothalamic clock at the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) that communicates with peripheral circadian oscillators for daily coordination of behavior and physiology. The SCN entrain to the environmental 24-h light-dark (LD) cycle and drive daily rhythms of internal synchronizers such as core body temperature, hypothalamic-hypophysary hormones, sympathetic/parasympathetic activity, as well as behavioral and feeding-fasting rhythms, which supply signals setting core molecular clocks at central and peripheral tissues. Steady phase relationships between the SCN and peripheral oscillators keep homeostatic processes such as microbiota/microbiome composition/activity, metabolic supply/demand, energy balance, immunoinflammatory process, sleep amount and quality, psychophysiological stress, etc. Indeed, the risk of health alterations increase when these phase relationships are chronically changed prompting circadian disruption (CD), as occurring after sudden LD cycle changes (so-called jet-lag), or due to changes of activity/feeding-rest/fasting rhythm with respect to LD cycles (as humans subjected to nightwork, or restricting food access at rest in mice). Typical pathologies observed in animal models of CD and epidemiological studies include metabolic syndrome, type-2 diabetes, obesity, chronic inflammation, cancer, sleep disruption, decrease in physical and cognitive performance, and mood, among others. The present review discusses different aspects of such physiological dysregulations observed in animal models of CD having altered feeding-fasting rhythms, with potential translation to human health.

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How Disrupting Daily Feeding and Fasting Patterns May Affect Metabolism, Immunity, Cancer Risk, and Thinking

Abstract

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