Eating only 8 hours a day may help control Type 1 diabetes — SkimNews
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- University of Illinois Chicago researchers randomized 32 adults with Type 1 diabetes and obesity into three six-month groups: an eight-hour eating window (noon–8 p.m.), a 25% calorie-restricted diet, and a control group with no dietary changes.
- Krista Varady, a UIC kinesiology and nutrition professor and longtime intermittent fasting researcher, led the trial — described as the first study to examine time-restricted eating in people with Type 1 diabetes.
- After six months, the time-restricted eating group's HbA1c — a measure of average blood sugar over several months — dropped by about 0.5% compared with the calorie-reduction arm.
- The trial found no rise in dangerously high or low blood sugar episodes and no increase in diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication triggered by insufficient insulin.
- Varady cautioned that the findings are a first step and urged patients not to change eating habits without consulting an endocrinologist, with larger multi-site studies planned.
- The results were published in the journal Diabetes Care in 2026, authored by a team that included Mary-Claire Runchey, Sarah Corapi, Vasiliki Pavlou and Sirimon Reutrakul alongside Varady.
Why it matters: Roughly 0.5% of the U.S. population lives with both Type 1 diabetes and obesity, and this small Chicago-area RCT is the first controlled evidence that time-restricted eating can lower HbA1c by ~0.5% without raising hypoglycemia or ketoacidosis risk — potentially adding a non-caloric-counting tool to the management playbook pending larger trials.
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