Food, Biological Clocks and Health: the Deadly Triangle?

Abstract

Very recent research has unravelled a most important component of human metabolic homeostasis: the existence and the crucial role of biological clocks.. Modern lifestyle has introduced a new paradigm, i.e. the collision between ancestral clock settings and their close interactions with changing alimentary and eating habits. Despite the very beginning of this potential revolutionary medical field, direct consequences of clock desynchronizations become already evident and leave little doubt that major practical consequences in nutrition and medical care will soon emerge for preventing further aggravation of the obesity and cardiometabolic syndrome burden. Food composition and eating time schedules are among the most likely to be first candidates to take into close consideration. This part aims at summarizing this new, exploding area of medical research, making the physicians familiar with practical aspects which might soon be of upmost importance for social health care within few years.