• Hiroaki Kuroda, Yu Tahara, Keisuke Saito, Nobuaki Ohnishi, Yuji Kubo, Yasuhiro Seo, Makiko Otsuka, Yuta Fuse, Yuki Ohura, Akiko Hirao, and Shigenobu Shibata.
• Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan.
• Sci Rep. 2012 Jan 1; 2: 711.

AbstractPeripheral circadian clocks in mammals are strongly entrained by light-dark and eating cycles. Their physiological functions are maintained by the synchronization of the phase of organs via clock gene expression patterns. However, little is known about the adaptation of peripheral clocks to the timing of multiple daily meals. Here, we investigated the effect of irregular eating patterns, in terms of timing and volume, on their peripheral clocks in vivo. We found that the phase of the peripheral clocks was altered by the amount of food and the interval between feeding time points but was unaffected by the frequency of feeding, as long as the interval remained fixed. Moreover, our results suggest that a late dinner should be separated into 2 half-dinners in order to alleviate the effect of irregular phases of peripheral clocks.

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