Sleep‑aligned fasting improves key heart and blood‑sugar markers
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 14-Jun-2026 12:16 ET (14-Jun-2026 16:16 GMT/UTC)
A new Northwestern Medicine study has personalized overnight fasting by aligning it with individuals’ circadian sleep-wake rhythm — an important regulator of cardiovascular and metabolic function — without changing their caloric intake.
The study found that among middle-age and older adults who are at higher risk for cardiometabolic disease, extending the participants’ overnight fast by about two hours, dimming the lights and not eating for three hours prior to bedtime improved measures of cardiovascular and metabolic health during sleep, as well as during the daytime.
“Timing our fasting window to work with the body’s natural wake-sleep rhythms can improve the coordination between the heart, metabolism and sleep, all of which work together to protect cardiovascular health,” first author Dr. Daniela Grimaldi said.A recent study published in Science China Life Sciences demonstrates that disulfiram, a drug used to treat alcoholism, can suppress liver cancer by regulating lipid metabolism and angiogenesis. Researchers found that disulfiram upregulates the gene c-FOS by reducing its RNA methylation, which in turn inhibits key molecules involved in lipid accumulation and blood vessel formation in tumors. This discovery highlights a promising repurposing potential for disulfiram in hepatocellular carcinoma therapy.
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