Eating within 8 hours may help keep the aging brain sharp

A small clinical trial suggests that limiting food intake to fewer hours each day could provide modest cognitive benefits for older women, beyond those associated with weight loss alone.

The pilot study followed women with overweight or obesity who were participating in a six-month weight loss program. Those who ate within a daily window of roughly eight to nine hours showed greater improvement on certain thinking tests than participants who spread their meals across about 12 hours.

"Losing weight alone will ward off some of the aging-related cognitive decline, and these data suggest that there may be additional benefits if you stop eating 4 hours prior to going to sleep and reduce food intake to 8-9 hours per day, compared to the usual eating window of 12 hours per day," said Sue Shapses, PhD, RD, DFASN, professor at Rutgers University and Rutgers-RWJ Medical Center, the study's Principal Investigator.