A smartphone app reveals erratic diurnal eating patterns in humans that can be modulated for health benefits

Summary

A diurnal rhythm of eating-fasting promotes health, but humans’ eating pattern is rarely assessed. Using a mobile app, we monitored ingestion events in healthy adults with no shift-work for several days. Most subjects ate frequently and erratically throughout wakeful hours and overnight fasting duration paralleled time in bed. There was a bias toward eating late, with estimated <25% calories being consumed before noon and >35% after 6pm. “Metabolic jetlag” resulting from weekday/weekend variation in eating pattern akin to travel across time-zones was prevalent. The daily intake duration (95% interval) exceeded 14.75 h for half the cohort. When overweight individuals with >14 h eating duration ate for only 10–11 h daily for 16 weeks assisted by a data visualization (raster plot of dietary intake pattern, “feedogram”) that we developed, they reduced body weight, reported being energetic, and improved sleep. Benefits persisted for a year.

Graphical Abstract