A Randomized Pilot Study of Time-Restricted Eating Shows Minimal Microbiome Changes

Abstract

Objective: TRE is an emerging approach in obesity treatment, yet there is limited data on how it influences gut microbiome composition in humans. Our objective was to characterize the gut microbiome of human participants before and after a TRE intervention. This is a secondary analysis of a previously published clinical trial examining the effects of time-restricted eating (TRE).

Methods: In a previously published, 12-week randomized controlled trial, Chow et al. evaluated the effects of an 8-h TRE intervention on body composition in human participants. Chow et al. demonstrated significant reductions in weight, lean mass, and visceral fat in the TRE group compared to those following time-unrestricted eating (non-TRE). Stool samples were collected by a subset of those participants using home kits at both baseline and post-intervention for shotgun metagenomic sequencing for this secondary analysis. Microbiome community composition was compared before and after intervention as alpha and beta diversity.

Results: Sixteen participants provided stool samples (eight in the TRE group and eight in the non-TRE group). Stool samples were collected from all participants at at least one time point, but both pre- and post-treatment samples were available from only five participants who completed both baseline and post-treatment collections. In alignment with the findings of Chow et al., the participants in the TRE group of the secondary analysis who collected microbiome sample(s) successfully reduced their eating window from an average of 15.3 ± 0.8 h at baseline to 9.3 ± 1.7 h during the intervention (mean ± SD, p < 0.001) and the non-TRE group's eating window remained unchanged. While the TRE group lost weight and visceral fat mass, no effect of the TRE intervention was observed on alpha diversity (Shannon index, Simpson index, and number of taxa, linear mixed models), beta diversity (Bray-Curtis, PERMANOVA), even after controlling for weight and visceral fat changes.

Conclusions: Our analysis did not detect any significant differences in gut microbiome composition or diversity indices between participants undergoing a TRE intervention and those in the control group. The study's findings are limited by a small sample size, short duration, and the collection of stool samples at only two time points. Future studies with larger sample sizes, longer durations, and more frequent sampling, and collection of detailed dietary data are needed to better understand the relationship between TRE and gut microbiome dynamics.

Keywords: fasting; gut microbiome; obesity; time-restricted eating; weight loss.

Figure 1

No significant change in alpha or beta diversity after 12 weeks of TRE. (A) The effect of the TRE intervention on alpha diversity (Shannon, Simpson, and the number of taxa) was modeled using linear mixed models adjusted for weight change and visceral fat change and accounting for within-subject repeated measures. n = 21 samples from 16 participants (8 TRE and 8 Non-TRE). (B) Beta diversity modeled using PERMANOVA and adjusted for weight change and visceral fat change and accounting for within-subject repeated measures. n = 21 samples from 16 participants (8 TRE and 8 Non-TRE). (C) Visualization of the paired subset of samples (n = 10 samples from 5 participants) did not reveal clear trends within study arms with respect to directionality of changes over the first principal coordinates. TRE: time-restricted eating; Non-TRE: time-unrestricted eating, PC: principal coordinate.

Figure 2

Microbiome composition at the (A) species level and (B) genus level for participants with paired pre- and post-intervention samples. Five participants had samples available at both pre-intervention and post-intervention time points (n = 3 non-TRE and n = 2 TRE). The most abundant species and genera are shown for each participant. TRE: time-restricted eating; Non-TRE: time-unrestricted eating.