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. 2024 Feb 26;21(1):22.
doi: 10.1186/s12966-023-01556-5.

Relationship between circadian eating behavior (daily eating frequency and nighttime fasting duration) and cardiovascular mortality

Weilun Cheng #  1 , Xing Meng #  2 , Jian Gao #  3 , Wenbo Jiang  3   4 , Xinyi Sun  3   5 , Ying Li  3   5 , Tianshu Han  3   5 , Dandan Zhang  6 , Wei Wei  7   8   9
Affiliations

Relationship between circadian eating behavior (daily eating frequency and nighttime fasting duration) and cardiovascular mortality

Weilun Cheng et al. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. .

Abstract

Background: Knowledge regarding the health impacts of daily eating frequency (DEF) and nighttime fasting duration (NFD) on mortality is very limited.

Objective: This study aimed to examine whether DEF and NFD are associated with CVD and all-cause mortality.

Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of a nationally representative sample from the United States, including 30,464 adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2014. Using 24-h dietary recall, DEF was assessed by the number of eating episodes, and NFD was calculated by the first and last eating time across a day. Death information was obtained from the National Death Index up to 2019. Weighted Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to assess survival relationships of DEF and NFD with mortality.

Results: During 307,686 person-years of follow-up, 4560 deaths occurred, including 1824 CVD cases. After adjustment for confounders, compared to DEF at 4-6 times, participants whose DEF was less than 3 times had greater CVD [hazard-ratio (HR) = 1.33, 95% confidence-interval (CI): 1.06-1.67] and all-cause (HR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.01-1.33) mortality risks. Furthermore, compared to NFD of 10 to 11 h, participants whose NFD was shorter than 10 h had HRs of 1.30 (95% CI: 1.08-1.55) for CVD mortality and 1.23 (95% CI: 1.08-1.39) for all-cause mortality. NFD longer than 14 h was also related to CVD mortality (HR = 1.37, 95% CI: 1.12-1.67) and all-cause mortality (HR = 1.36, 95% CI: 1.19-1.54). Similar results for the association of NFD and DEF with heart-specific and stroke-specific mortality were observed.

Conclusion: This study found that DEF less than 3 times and NFD shorter than 10 h or longer than 14 h were independently associated with greater cardiovascular and all-cause mortality.

Keywords: Cardiovascular health; Daily eating frequency; Long-term health impacts; Nighttime fasting duration.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Dose–response association for the Daily eating frequency and nighttime fasting duration and mortalities for heart-disease specific and stroke specific. Legends: A daily eating frequency and CVD mortality; B daily eating frequency and all-cause mortality; C nighttime fasting duration and CVD mortality; D nighttime fasting duration and all-cause mortality
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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