Recent work has established biological rhythms in human skeletal muscle. It remains unknown how the timing and pattern of meals influences these rhythms. Therefore, this study sets out to establish how frequent (CONSTANT) vs infrequent (BOLUS) feeding patterns influence established biological rhythms in skeletal muscle.
Human metabolism is regulated on a daily basis via a circadian timing system that coordinates metabolic responses between various tissues. Skeletal muscle is a major site for the oxidation or storage of key metabolites, with recent studies at Bath and Surrey demonstrating biological rhythms in this tissue over a 24-h cycle. It is well established that dysregulated metabolism in skeletal muscle contributes to poor metabolic health and that poor diet is a causal factor in this deterioration. Diet can be characterised by three nutritional considerations: how much is eaten (i.e. quantity/dose), what is eaten (i.e. type) and when it is eaten (i.e. timing). Whilst most dietary approaches and most scientific studies have focused on the first two factors, there is convincing evidence that human health is also dictated by the pattern of nutrient delivery; this includes the frequency and regularity of daily eating occasions, along with their timing both in absolute terms (i.e. time-of-day) and relative to when other inter-related daily events occur - or usually occur (e.g. light exposure, sleep, exercise, etc.). It remains unknown whether the interaction of such factors may affect the biological rhythms previously documented in human skeletal muscle. In particular, from a basic science perspective, the fundamental contrast between frequent versus infrequent feeding warrants investigation. To this end, 16-24 healthy adults will be randomly allocated to receive their individual daily energy requirements delivered via naso-gastric infusion either continuously over 24 hours (n=8-12; CONSTANT) or as two bolus infusions at the start (0800 h) and mid-point (2000 h) of the monitoring period (n=8-12; BOLUS). Serial skeletal muscle (vastus lateralis) biopsies will be sampled every 4 hours over a controlled 24-h sleep-wake cycle.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
BASIC_SCIENCE
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
18
University of Bath
Bath, Somerset, United Kingdom
Autophagy
Rhythms in autophagy with different feeding patterns
Time frame: 4 hours
Transcriptomic, rhythms in human skeletal muscle
Assessing rhythms in core-clock genes within the muscle samples
Time frame: Over a 24-hour period at a 4 hour resolution
Endocrine responses of systemic blood plasma over 24-hours
Rhythms in endocrine regulation of metabolism over a 24-hour period (e.g. insulin, appetite hormones)
Time frame: 24-hours
Continuously monitored subcutaneous interstitial glucose concentrations
Assessed using a continual glucose monitor
Time frame: 48-hours
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