Both time-restricted eating (TRE) and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) have been shown to improve cardiometabolic health in people who are overweight and at risk of serious disease. Now a randomized, controlled trial has tested whether combining these two approaches is more effective than either of them on their own. The results, publishing in the journal Cell Metabolism on October 4, show that the combination improved the average long-term glycemic control compared to a no-intervention control group and induced 2-fold greater reductions in fat mass and visceral fat area compared with each intervention in isolation.

"Isolated TRE and HIIT have received increasing attention for being effective and feasible strategies for at-risk populations," says senior author Trine Moholdt, head of the Exercise, Cardiometabolic Health, and Reproduction Research Group at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). "We wanted to compare the effects of the combination of TRE and HIIT with their isolated effects and to determine whether TRE and HIIT would act synergistically in improving health in individuals with risk for cardiometabolic disease. This finding highlights the importance of changing both dietary and physical activity habits for individuals who wish to rapidly improve their health and lower their disease risk."

The trial had four arms: HIT alone, TRE alone, the TRE-HIIT combination, and a control group. A total of 131 women were enrolled, with 32 or 33 in each arm. All of them had overweight or obesity and had risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. TRE was defined as consuming all daily calories within a 10-hour time window. HIIT was defined as exercise done at 90% of maximum heart rate for 35 minutes, three times per week. The exercise sessions were supervised by the investigators, and the participants were asked to log their first and last calories every day.

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