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Optimizing the design of time-restricted eating human trials

Nature Metabolism volume 6, pages 1423–1425 (2024)Cite this article

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Time-restricted eating has become a popular diet for weight management and has spurred tremendous interest in the scientific community. The translation of results from TRE trials heavily depends on trial design. In this Comment, we provide general guidelines on optimizing the design and performance of time-restricted eating trials in human participants.

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Fig. 1: Recommendations for optimizing the design of TRE human trials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Krista A. Varady

  2. Department of Medicine, Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, MN, USA

    Lisa S. Chow

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  1. Krista A. Varady
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  2. Lisa S. Chow
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Krista A. Varady.

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Competing interests

K.A.V. received author fees from Pan MacMillan Publishing for the book ‘The Fastest Diet. L.S.C. received an investigator-initiated grant for product only from DEXCOM.

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Nature Metabolism thanks Hanno Pijl and Leonie Heilbronn for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Varady, K.A., Chow, L.S. Optimizing the design of time-restricted eating human trials. Nat Metab 6, 1423–1425 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-024-01073-0

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