Time Restricted Eating for Metabolic Syndrome? I’m Unimpressed.

A new study shows it’s better than dietary education… but just barely.

One out of three American adults — about a hundred million people in this country — have the metabolic syndrome. I’m showing you the official criteria here, but essentially this is a syndrome of insulin resistance and visceral adiposity that predisposes us to a host of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and even dementia.

The metabolic syndrome is, fundamentally, a lifestyle disease. There is a direct line between our dietary habits, the wide availability of carbohydrate rich, highly processed foods, and the rise of the syndrome in the population.

There was a saying I learned from one of my epidemiology teachers that comes to mind. “Lifestyle diseases require lifestyle interventions.” But you know what? I’m not so sure anymore.

I’ve been around long enough to see multiple dietary fads come and go with varying efficacy. I grew up in the low-fat era, probably the most detrimental time to our national health as food manufacturers started replacing fats with…