This content originally appeared on On a regular basis Health. Republished with permission.

By Lisa Rapaport

Individuals with obesity and prediabetes who eat most of their meals inside the first eight hours of the day may give you the chance to lower their blood sugar levels even in the event that they don’t drop extra pounds, 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 barely elevated but not high enough to develop into full-blown type 2 diabetes.

All the participants spent considered one of the weeks following their usual eating pattern, with half of their each day calories consumed after 4 p.m., and the opposite week doing a style of intermittent fasting referred to 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 take care of their current weight, they usually all wore continuous blood sugar monitors throughout the study.

Through the week of early time-restricted eating, participants had significantly less time when their blood sugar climbed above a healthy range than they did throughout the week when their meal timing was designed to mimic their usual eating habits, based on study results presented on the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting.

“Any such feeding, through its effect on blood sugar, may prevent those with prediabetes or obesity from progressing to type 2 diabetes,” lead study writer Joanne Bruno, MD, PhD, an endocrinology fellow at Latest York University Langone Health in Latest York City, said in an announcement.

Why Is Prediabetes a Concern and How Can You Prevent It?

Roughly 1 in 3 American adults have prediabetes, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The condition is more common amongst individuals with obesity and amongst individuals who’re 45 or older.

Regular physical activity and modest weight reduction can each help prevent prediabetes and keep it from progressing, says the CDC. For a 200-pound person, losing 10 kilos (5 percent of their body weight) may help lower the chance. So can getting at the least 150 minutes per week of brisk walking, or a few half hour a day, five days per week, the CDC recommends.

As for intermittent fasting, researchers just like the ones behind the NYU study are investigating its various impacts on obesity and prediabetes, and whether any particular time-restricting strategies do essentially the most to enhance health for people with these conditions.

When people see blood sugar improvements with intermittent fasting, it’s actually because they drop extra pounds and what’s referred to as visceral fat — belly fat that may accumulate around organs just like the stomach, liver, and intestines — says Krista Varady, PhD, a nutrition professor on the University of Illinois in Chicago, who wasn’t involved within the NYU study.

“Dropping pounds has a downstream effect of improving levels of cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar regulation,” Dr. Varady says.

The brand new study was too small and too transient to attract broad conclusions about whether early time-restricted eating may additionally help reverse prediabetes or stop it from progressing to type 2 diabetes, Varady adds. And more research can be needed to see if it’s possible that this sort of intermittent fasting might help lower blood sugar even when people don’t drop extra pounds, she says.

Is Early Time-Restricted Eating Price a Try?

While there’s no harm in trying intermittent fasting for most individuals with obesity who don’t produce other medical conditions, individuals who have already got type 2 diabetes shouldn’t eat this manner without consulting a physician first, Varady advises. It’s also not a superb idea for youngsters under 12, people over 70, or individuals who’re underweight or have eating disorders to eat this manner.

Even when people do try intermittent fasting, the early time-restricted eating pattern utilized in the study may be hard for a variety of people to administer, Varady says.

“Most individuals prioritize eating meals within the evening with their families and friends,” Varady says. “So, I don’t think most Americans will adopt early eating patterns as it could make it too difficult to socialize.”