NCT04618133

Time-restricted Eating in Morning Chronotype

Completed NA Last updated 16 December 2024

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Early time-restricted eating in Overweight and Obesity in 92 participants. Completed in 22 October 2024.

Timeline

4 January 2021

Primary endpoint
15 July 2024

22 October 2024

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Tinh-Hai Collet, MD
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	treatment
Enrollment	92
Start date	4 January 2021
Primary completion	15 July 2024
Estimated completion	22 October 2024
Sites	1 location across Switzerland

Drugs / interventions tested

• Early time-restricted eating
• Late time-restricted eating
• Active control — full drug profile →

Conditions studied

• Overweight and Obesity — all drugs for Overweight and Obesity →

Sponsor

Tinh-Hai Collet, MD

Who can join

Adults 25 to 50, any sex, with Overweight and Obesity. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

Overweight and obesity are highly prevalent conditions worldwide, despite active research of new interventions over decades. Current interventions include medications or bariatric surgery, but these approaches cannot be used in all patients and require clear indications and a close multidisciplinary management. Therefore most patients and physicians rely on lifestyle interventions, focusing on a balanced diet and physical exercise.

Recent studies have uncovered that energy metabolism is also regulated by circadian rhythms, which depend on spontaneous diurnal oscillations of the central clock, retinal sensing of ambient light, and daily feeding-fasting cycles. The chronotype has an influence on behavioral patterns, where some people describe that they are more alert in the morning or in the evening: The morning or evening chronotypes, respectively. However, in modern societies, many people are exposed to external cues in misalignment with their circadians clocks. The mismatch between the individual chronotype and the social/work life can lead to metabolic disorders.

Time-restricted eating (TRE), i.e. energy intake limited to certain windows of time without restricting calories, is an appealing approach because it proposes to realign the circadian clocks with external cues provided by the timing of food intake, thus leading to better metabolic outcomes.

The investigators speculate that the TRE intervention needs to be personalized to reach efficacy in a broader population. To tailor the TRE intervention to each individual and harmonize their eating patterns in accordance to their chronotype, the investigators plan to test early TRE vs. late TRE vs. active control in overweight and obese individuals with morning chronotype.

Publications & conference data

3 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Time-restricted eating: Watching the clock to treat obesity.
   Ezpeleta M, Cienfuegos S, Lin S, Pavlou V, et al · · 2024 · cited 83× · PMID 38176412 · DOI 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.12.004
2. Circadian rhythms and inflammatory diseases of the liver and gut.
   Ferrell JM. · · 2023 · cited 7× · PMID 39958387 · DOI 10.1016/j.livres.2023.08.004
3. Circadian rhythms and gastrointestinal hormone-related appetite regulation.
   Malin SK. · · 2025 · PMID 40110812 · DOI 10.1097/med.0000000000000908