The potential intervention of time-restricted feeding for modulating hepatic gene expression of the inflammatory mediators and serum adipokine balance in high-fat diet-induced steatosis.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Animal research without human clinical data
PubMed 41364171 · doi:10.26402/jpp.2025.5.07
What was done
Forty male Wistar rats were divided into four groups for 12 weeks: control, control + time-restricted feeding (TRF), high-fat diet (HFD), and HFD + TRF. TRF consisted of an 18-hour daily fast followed by a 6-hour feeding window. Outcomes measured included body weight, glucose homeostasis (HOMA-IR), lipid profiles, serum inflammatory markers, adipokines (adiponectin, leptin, resistin), hepatic oxidative stress markers (malondialdehyde, total antioxidant capacity), hepatic inflammatory gene expression (NF-κB, TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, hs-CRP), and liver histopathology (steatosis grade, p53 expression).
What was found
In HFD-fed rats, TRF significantly reduced body weight from 396.5 ± 6.9 g to 350 ± 6.4 g (p < 0.0001) and lowered HOMA-IR from 2.03 ± 0.06 to 0.72 ± 0.05 (p < 0.05). Hepatic malondialdehyde was reduced from 25 to 12.42 nmol/g (p < 0.0001). TRF downregulated gene expression of inflammatory mediators including TNF-α and NF-κB, increased adiponectin, improved adiponectin/leptin and adiponectin/resistin ratios, and reduced histological steatosis severity from grade 3 to grade 1 or 0. Exact numerical data for control groups, lipid profiles, and other cytokines were not provided in the abstract.
Why it matters
This animal study demonstrates that an 18:6 time-restricted feeding schedule can ameliorate diet-induced hepatic steatosis, oxidative stress, and inflammatory signaling pathways in rodents.
Limits
This is an animal study in male Wistar rats, so the findings cannot be directly generalized to humans. The abstract does not report whether caloric intake was matched across groups or provide numerical values for all measured serum and gene expression markers, and female animals were not evaluated.
Cited by
- supports Time-restricted eating reduces systemic inflammation in animal models.