Cell metabolismOct 5, 2022

Time-Restricted Eating Feasibility and Effects on Heart and Metabolic Health in 24-Hour Shift Workers

Circadian Biology Weekly Brief ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Updated Apr 4, 2026

Abstract

In a randomized control trial with 137 firefighters, 12 weeks of 10-hour time-restricted eating was feasible and led to significant changes in eating patterns.

Participants reduced their eating window from a mean of 14.13 hours to 11.13 hours.
No adverse effects were reported during the intervention.
Quality of life improved as measured by the SF-36 survey.
Time-restricted eating significantly decreased VLDL particle size compared to standard care.
In individuals with elevated cardiometabolic risks, time-restricted eating resulted in reductions in glycated hemoglobin A1C and diastolic blood pressure.

Simplified

Over a quarter of the workforce in industrialized countries does shift work, which increases the risk for cardiometabolic disease. Yet shift workers are often excluded from lifestyle intervention studies to reduce this risk. In a randomized control trial with 137 firefighters who work 24-h shifts (23-59 years old, 9% female), 12 weeks of 10-h time-restricted eating (TRE) was feasible, with TRE participants decreasing their eating window (baseline, mean 14.13 h, 95% CI 13.78-14.47 h; intervention, 11.13 h, 95% CI 10.73-11.54 h, p = 3.29E-17) with no adverse effects, and improved quality of life assessed via SF-36 (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03533023). Compared to the standard of care (SOC) arm, TRE significantly decreased VLDL particle size. In participants with elevated cardiometabolic risks at baseline, there were significant reductions in TRE compared to SOC in glycated hemoglobin A1C and diastolic blood pressure. For individuals working a 24-h shift schedule, TRE is feasible and can improve cardiometabolic health, especially for individuals with increased risk. VIDEO ABSTRACT.

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Competing interests

Declaration of interests Affiliations are provided for all authors at the time the work was done. P.R.T. is a consultant for Sanofi/Regeneron, Novo-Nordisk, Boehringer-Ingleheim, Janssen, Pfizer, Amarin, and Amgen. She is a stockholder of Cardero Therapeutics. S.P. is a consultant for Hooke London and the author of The Circadian Code and The Circadian Diabetes Code.

PubMed

Time-Restricted Eating Feasibility and Effects on Heart and Metabolic Health in 24-Hour Shift Workers

Abstract

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Funding

Competing interests

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Abstract

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