Efficacy and Feasibility of Time-restricted Eating on Cardiometabolic Health in Adults With Overweight/Obesity

In Spain, obesity epidemic is one of the leading contributors of chronic disease and disability. Obesity is associated with higher morbidity and all-cause mortality risk especially when fat is stored in the abdominal area (i.e., increased visceral adipose tissue, VAT). Although current approaches such as energy restriction may be effective at reducing body fat and improving cardiometabolic health, their long-term adherences are limited. Time-restricted eating (TRE; e.g., 8 hours eating: 16 hours fasting on a daily basis) is a recently emerged intermittent fasting approach with promising cardiovascular benefits. Results from pioneering pilot studies in humans are promising and suggest that simply reducing the eating time window from ≥12 to ≤8-10 hours/day improves cardiometabolic health. However, currently, there is no consensus regarding whether the TRE eating window should be aligned to the early or middle to late part of the day. The EXTREME study will investigate the efficacy and feasibility of three different 8 hours TRE schedules (i.e., early, late and self-selected) over 12 weeks on VAT (main outcome) and cardiometabolic risk factors (secondary outcomes) in adults with overweight/obesity and abdominal obesity. The final goal of the EXTREME study is to demonstrate the health benefits of a novel and pragmatic intervention for the treatment of obesity and related cardiometabolic risk factors; an approach readily adaptable to real-world practice settings, easy for clinicians to deliver, and intuitive for patients to implement and maintain in their lives.