Timing of Food Intake Impacts Daily Rhythms of Human Saliva Microbiota
Condition: Healthy Women
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The purpose of this investigation is to test the hypothesis that in humans, eating late may
      induce changes in saliva microbiota daily rhythms towards a more obesogenic and a less
      responsiveness to dietary treatments profile. These changes in microbiota may partly explain
      the weight loss difficulties that characterized late eaters in previous studies. Thus, the
      aim is to analyze the effect of the timing of food intake in humans' saliva microbiome daily
      rhythms in a randomized, crossover interventional study, in order to achieve.
    

Detailed description: 
      Overweight and obesity can currently be considered a major threat to human health. Recent
      studies suggest that not only "what" we eat, but also "when" we eat may have a significant
      role in obesity treatment. The importance of caloric distribution across the day on weight
      loss therapy was supported by a 12-weeks experimental study showing that subjects assigned to
      high caloric intake during breakfast lost significantly more weight than those assigned to
      high caloric intake during the dinner. These results suggest that eating late may affect
      obesity and impair the success of weight loss therapies.

      Novel evidence from animal and human studies indicates that the composition of the gut
      microbiota may also be involved in obesity and weight loss. Moreover, studies performed in
      extreme obese subjects have demonstrated that weight loss improves the obesity-associated gut
      microbiota composition towards a lean microbiome phenotype.

      A recent study has shown that the timing of food intake influences microbiota in mice model.
      This study reported that obesity dampens the cyclical changes in the gut microbiome of mice
      while time-restricted feeding (TRF), in which feeding is consolidated to the nocturnal phase,
      partially restores these cyclical fluctuations. Furthermore, TRF which protects against
      obesity and metabolic diseases affects bacteria and has shown to influence host metabolism.
      Then, feeding pattern and time of food intake, in addition to diet, are important parameters
      when assessing the microbiome's contribution to mice metabolism. However, to our knowledge no
      human studies are available showing the effect of timing of food intake in microbiota.

      Thus, the aim was to analyze the effect of the timing of food intake in humans' saliva
      microbiome, in order to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between food
      timing, obesity and weight loss in humans.

      This goal will be achieved through a specific approach:

      • Interventional (randomized, cross-over controlled trials) (Aim 1): To study that, eating
      late may induce changes in saliva microbiota daily rhythms towards a more obesogenic pattern
      and a less responsiveness to dietary treatments profile in women (n=10).
    

Intervention name(s): Food Timing
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): the timing of the main meal of the day (lunch in Spain) is changed from early (14:00) to late (17:30) and viceversa in a randomized and crossover way
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Crossover Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Microbiota; Food timing; Obesity