Skipping meals linked to abdominal weight gain and diabetes risk in mice

By Sally Robertson, B.Sc.May 21 2015

A study using mice has shown that skipping meals causes abdominal weight gain and insulin resistance, known risk factors for diabetes.

As reported in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, the study compared metabolic parameters between mice that ate their day’s food intake all in one go and control mice that had unlimited access to food, which they nibbled at throughout the day.

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Initially, the mice who gorged and then fasted had their diet restricted. Those mice lost weight compared to the control mice, but when calories were added back into their diet, they put the weight back on. By the end of the study, they almost matched the weight of the control mice.

However, when abdominal fat was weighed, it was heavier among the mice who gorged and fasted than among the control mice. An excess of this type of fat, which is the equivalent to belly fat in humans, is associated with insulin resistance and a risk for type 2 diabetes.

The researchers assessed glucose production to check for insulin resistance in the mice that gorged and then fasted and found that they had indeed developed insulin resistance in their livers, which is an indicator of prediabetes.

When insulin levels are low due to not eating for a while, the liver receives signals telling it to pump out glucose. After eating a meal, the pancreas releases insulin, which instructs cells to take up glucose from the blood. The liver also responds to the insulin signals by stopping the production of glucose. The researchers found that among the mice that gorged and fasted, glucose remained in the blood, indicating that the liver was failing to react normally to the insulin message.

“These mice don’t have type 2 diabetes yet, but they’re not responding to insulin anymore and that state of insulin resistance is referred to as prediabetes,” explains lead author of the study, Martha Belury (Ohio State University).

Belury also says that the findings do support the idea that eating small meals throughout the day can help with weight loss, but skipping meals to reduce calorie intake should be avoided: “It sets your body up for larger fluctuations in insulin and glucose and could be setting you up for more fat gain instead of fat loss.”