Association of chrononutrition patterns with biological aging: evidence from a nationally representative cross-sectional study

Abstract

Previous studies mostly focused on the benefits of caloric restriction and fasting on longevity. However, whether the timing and frequency of eating affect aging remains unclear. Here, we investigated the associations between chrononutrition patterns and biological aging, and explored whether and to what extent dietary inflammation mediated this association. 16 531 adults aged 20 to 84 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were collected. Chrononutrition patterns were determined with two 24-hour dietary recalls. Phenotypic age was calculated to reflect the biological aging status. The dietary inflammatory index (DII) was used to assess the dietary inflammation. After adjustment of the survey weight and multiple covariates including total energy intake, participants in the third tertile of the time of the first meal (mean 10 : 26) exhibited more advanced biological age (β 0.64; 95% CI, 0.26–1.00) and a higher incidence of accelerated aging (odds ratio (OR) 1.25; 95% CI, 1.06–1.47) compared to those of the first tertile (mean 6 : 14). Higher eating frequency was associated with delayed biological aging in both multivariable linear (β −0.31; 95% CI, −0.44 to −0.19) and logistic regression model (OR 0.90; 95% CI, 0.85–0.95). Furthermore, we found that DII rather than metabolic factors mediated the inverse association between eating frequency and biological aging (mediation proportion 24.67%; 95% CI, 19.83%–32.00%). Our findings demonstrated the association between chrononutrition patterns and biological aging among the US general population and the potential role of dietary inflammation in this association, suggesting that modifying chrononutrition patterns may be a practical and cost-effective strategy for combating aging.