Brian Johnson’s short YouTube monologue summarizes evidence linking time-restricted eating and fasting windows to improved metabolic health and potentially lower cancer risk. He cites The Comfort Crisis and work by researchers (including S. Panda), summarizes a mice experiment showing large weight/body-fat differences for 8–12 hour feeding windows, and references human studies (a Spain study of >4,000 people and a UCSD study of 2,400 women) that associate earlier dinners/longer nightly fasts (≥13 hours) with lower cancer risk and recurrence. He concludes with a practical recommendation: aim for a 12–16 hour fast and avoid eating 2–3 hours before bed.
Questions this video answers
12 to 16 hours per day.
They weighed 28% less (and had 70% less body fat).
Over 4,000 people; earlier dinner (before 9pm or ≥2 hours before bed) was associated with a 20% reduced risk of breast and prostate cancer.
2,400 women; nightly fasts of fewer than 13 hours were associated with a 36% higher risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to ≥13 hours.
Avoid eating for 2–3 hours before bed.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plos one. In our last plus one, we contemplated the insane odds of us being alive. As you may recall, in his great book, the Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter tells us that, and I quote, one scientist calculated the numbers and found that a person's odds of being alive are 1 in 10 to the 2,685,000th power. The scientist explains that these odds are the same as having a group of 2 million people each roll a trillion sided die and every roll landing on the same number. Like 550,343,270,9007 1. In that long number, one more time, the odds of us being alive are equivalent to 2 million people rolling a trillion sided die in every roll landing on the same number. I repeat, head exploding emoji. That's goosebumps. Crazy. Today I want to chat about one very powerful way to ensure we get the most out of that precious miracle that is our lives. Quick context. The Comfort crisis is all about how our modern comfortable lives are making us unhappy while killing us prematurely. Now one facet of this comfort crisis is related to food. Captain Obvious here. But back in the day, we didn't have access to food all day, every day. And we certainly didn't have access to factory produced fake food that literally didn't even exist a hundred years ago. So Michael tells us that this easy access to food has led to all day feasts, which has contributed to a crisis in health. He tells us, and I quote, the body's taking out the trash process is officially called autophagy, which translates from the ancient Greek as self devouring. Autophagy is in many ways a metaphor for what happens to all things under discomfort. Our weak links, whether physical or psychological, are painfully sacrificed for our good. He continues by saying humans probably developed autophagy in concert with day and night cycles, generating what Panda calls circadian rhythms. The research suggests that the body has programmed within it a code to crank up autophagy to repeat and rejuvenate itself at night as it burns through the day's food. But our 15 hour daily eating windows disrupt the process, said Panda. They rob the bodies of the 12 to 16 hours we need to fully metabolize food and and lapse into autophagy mode. Or as the Cedars Sinai scientists put it, if you eat before bed, you're not going to have any autophagy. That means you're not going to take out the trash. So the cells begin to accumulate more and more debris. End quote. Now that's from a chapter called 12 to 16 hours. Let's do the math. If we have a 15 hour eating window, that means we only give our bodies nine hours off to take out the trash rather than constantly trying to keep up with all the food we eat. And that's simply not enough time for our bodies to do their jobs. Now we talk about the research on this in our notes on Max Vegaver's book the Genius Life. Here's how he puts it and I quote Some mice were given access to food around the clock, while others only had access during the night when mice normally come out to forage and feed. The results of the experiment were staggering. While the mice that ate around the clock became obese and unhealthy, the group that was only given access to food within an 8 to 12 hour window ended up slim and healthy. Both groups of mice consumed the same number of calories and the same mixture of unhealthy fats and sugars. But the mice in the nighttime only feeding group weighed 28% less and had 70% less body fat. After 18 weeks, independent of what they were eating, sticking to their natural nocturnal feeding time protected them against obesity and even gave their health a boost. Think about that for a moment. He continues by saying, quote now humans are not mice, but signs are pointing in a similar direction for people who practice time restricted eating. A number of small trials have shown that merely eating an earlier dinner can improve blood sugar and blood pressure independent of weight loss. It may even help fight cancer. One study from Spain involving over 4,000 people found eating an earlier dinner before 9pm or at least two hours before bed was reduced the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancers by 20%. A UCSD study yielded equally promising findings, this time for cancer recurrence. The study involved 2,400 women with early stage breast cancer and found that a nightly fast of fewer than 13 hours was associated with a 36% higher risk of recurrence compared to 13 or more hours of food abstention per night. There was also a trend toward increased mortality for late night eaters and Max tells us that round the clock eating is a new phenomenon for all of us, driven by an abundance of food that would have been inconceivable to our hunter gatherer ancestors. Finally, he also tells us, thankfully the solution is simple if you can help it. Avoid eating for two to three hours before bed. And that's today's plus one. Know this. When we eat and don't eat is as important as what we eat. Remember this. We need a fasting window of 12 to 16 hours. Pop quiz. How many consecutive hours a day do you go without eating? Here's to hitting that 12 to 16 hour target. Hero day one. Let's go.
