Eating according to your Chronotype - how far are we?
Early bird or late night owl, most of us know exactly what suits our bodies better through experience. From how sluggish we feel after tucking into that late night meal, or how energised we feel after a brisk morning walk. Recent research points to the fact that not only our lifestyle, but also our eating patterns should be tailored to our bodies, this is called Chrononutrition.
Definition
Chrononutrition is an advancing research discipline in nutritional science that seeks to influence our relationship with food by exploring the notion that when we eat matters just as much as what we eat.
Specifically, it considers how eating patterns impact metabolism and well-being. It is often called or misconstrued as time-restricted feeding or scheduled controlled feeding.The concept of ‘chrono-nutrition’ means “coordinating food intake with the circadian body rhythm.”
On a physiological level, Chrononutrition can affect hunger, metabolism and digestion.
Chrononutrition is still considered a young science, but some important learnings so far are shared next.
- The researchers observed that circadian rhythm disruptors, including poor sleep and shiftwork, are risk factors for age-related muscle loss and frailty. The researchers also highlighted that evidence suggests that scheduled controlled feeding, like time-restricted feeding, may benefit muscle health.
- In another study by Manoogian et al (2022) researchers observed that in animal studies, time-restricted eating may benefit metabolic health and prevent or manage metabolic diseases like obesity and glucose intolerance.
- Lastly, another study by Ganson et al (2022) looked at the link between intermittent fasting and eating disorder behaviors. The researchers found that intermittent fasting was strongly associated with eating disorder behaviors among participants that practiced it in the past 12 months and 30 days.
In this sense, chrononutrition is well-positioned to be integrated as a personalized nutrition strategy to improve health through understanding an individual´s genetic make-up, microbiome composition, metabolic fingerprint and their chronotype (ie early bird or late-night owl)
Nutrigenetics is an essential part of personalized nutrition that looks at how a person’s genes affect their response to specific diets. The Clock gene (rs4580704), has previously been associated with obesity and metabolic risk and sleep deprivation is known to lead to epigenetic alterations further influencing food behaviour.
A recent review by Voigt et al (2019) states that the diet and the time we eat, regulates the microbiota rhythms, which may in turn, impact microbial structure.
Research shows that eating to one´s chronotype may have the best effect on individuals with dysregulated circadian rhythms impacting their metabolic function.
Time-restricted feeding
Time-restricted feeding involves restricting the daily eating window from 12 to 14 hours a day to less than 10 hours a day to increase the daily fasting period—has been suggested to be a promising intervention for managing body weight and improving cardio-metabolic health. However this dietary pattern comes with its own challenges.
While light (am) and darkness (pm) primarily impact the circadian rhythm, feeding and fasting cycles also do so to a different extent.
Researchers, Ahluwalia et al (2022), have posited that aligning dietary patterns with the biological day may support circadian rhythm and metabolic health.
Two types of industry solutions addressing Chrononutrition.
# 1 - Supplementation
Firstly these are solutions that are targeting sleep as a way to support different chronotypes through supplementation with a goal to impact metabolism.
HMN24 is a UK-based human performance and nutritional supplements company founded in 2021 by Jason Rickaby and Phil Learney. This company produces and sells nutritional supplements that support the biological rhythm to benefit physical and cognitive well-being.
According to the company’s product philosophy, the company’s mission is to “fuel human potential” with functional nutrients that work with the circadian rhythm and support round-the-clock performance.
Supplements in the company’s product line include:
FLOW: This supplement may help with fatigue and energy decline. Ingredients include Lion's Mane Extract, Acetyl- L Carnitine, Rhodiola Rosea, Lutein, Zeaxanthin, N-Acetyl- L Tyrosine (NALT), Bacognize(R), Citicoline CDP-Choline, Pine Bark Extract, Bamboo Extract, Zinc, Calcium, and B-Vitamin Complex
- PRE-SLEEP: This supplement may help a person fall asleep faster and get deep sleep. Ingredients include Phosphatidylserine (PS), KSM 66® Ashwagandha, Levagen+™ (Palmitoylethanolamide (PEA)), Vitamin C, L-Theanine, Magnesium Glycinate, Zinc Picolinate, and Vitamin B complex
- RISE: This supplement may help with morning focus. Ingredients include unroasted Robusta Coffee beans, Blueberry Juice Extract, Citicoline CDP-Choline, Acetyl L-Carnitine, and Creapure.
Persona is a Nestle Health Science company that offers consumers personalized daily supplements that support various aspects of health. The company provides a free science-backed nutrition test that helps people figure out the proper nutrients for their well-being needs. It asks about a person’s goals, lifestyle, diet, allergies, and medications. It only takes a few minutes to complete it. Insights from the results determine your supplement plan.
Persona is now working on a project to help people who are on a periodic fasting routine with supplement packages that help them optimize their results through day time and evening packs.
# 2 - Lifestyle
The second, more customized approach are solutions that provide foods and snacks that are nutrient dense that can be consumed during the recommended 12 hour period.
What could the future look like?
Sleep has become big business and a growing industry on its own. According to Statista, the market is estimated to be valued at $585bn by 2024. We expect the lines between sleep and personalized nutrition solutions to become increasingly blurred. This could look like combining botanicals and nutrients that target specific pathways to enhance the effect of chrononutrition.
2. In the future non-invasive technologies will increasingly help to provide data to provide insight into how we respond to daily stressors through wearables like rings. Pairing technology with digital biomarkers can provide insight into how individuals respond on a daily basis and how this impacts their chronobiology. For example, the Ultrahuman ring can now provide insight into digital biomarkers beyond sleep such as the rate of metabolism. The feedback from these devices would include the best time to eat, what to eat and when best to take supplements
3. IoT devices such as Withings' new toilet device will provide important insights into the morning void which holds important clues to our health. More home devices will be connected to healthcare providers to provide feedback and insights into how daily fluctuations impact their circadian rhythms.
Summary
Despite the lack of strong evidence, chrononutrition is an emerging area of research which is gaining ground driven by a rising interest in the role and importance of sleep on our physical and mental health. Timing, frequency and composition of foods are the main components of chrononutrition, of which intermittent fasting is the tactic mostly adopted by consumers. Our chronotype is largely influenced by our microbiome, epigenetics and genetics of which the effect is bi-directional. Digital tools will play an increasingly important role in tracking the effects of different interventions on the body's rhythm.
This post is a short summary based on our Executive data brief, a deep-dive into hot topics in Personalized nutrition where we break down the science, the disupters and future trends for executives.
Reference:
- Aoyama, S., Nakahata, Y., & Shinohara, K. (2021). Chrono-Nutrition Has Potential in Preventing Age-Related Muscle Loss and Dysfunction. Frontiers in neuroscience, 15, 659883. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2021.659883
- Emily N C Manoogian, Lisa S Chow, Pam R Taub, Blandine Laferrère, Satchidananda Panda, Time-restricted Eating for the Prevention and Management of Metabolic Diseases, Endocrine Reviews, Volume 43, Issue 2, April 2022, Pages 405–436, https://doi.org/10.1210/endrev/bnab027
- Ganson, K. T., Cuccolo, K., Hallward, L., & Nagata, J. M. (2022). Intermittent fasting: Describing engagement and associations with eating disorder behaviors and psychopathology among Canadian adolescents and young adults. Eating behaviors, 47, 101681. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2022.101681
- Rijo-Ferreira, F., Takahashi, J.S. Genomics of circadian rhythms in health and disease. Genome Med 11, 82 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13073-019-0704-0
- Al Aboud NM, Tupper C, Jialal I. Genetics, Epigenetic Mechanism. [Updated 2022 Aug 8]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532999/
- https://www.qina.tech/blog/the-role-of-women-in-research-interview-with-nutraingredients
- https://hmn24.com
- https://www.personanutrition.com