Obesity and its complications, such as type 2 diabetes, are major health problems in the U.S. Reducing calories can lead to weight loss, but people have trouble sticking with their diets. One promising alternative to dieting is isocaloric twice-a-day (ITAD) feeding. ITAD doesn’t require reducing daily caloric intake. Instead, it involves consuming the same number of daily calories in the course of two meals instead of the usual three.

In earlier research Dr. Singh and colleagues found that ITAD prevents weight gain in mice by activating autophagy, a fat-and calorie-burning cleanup process that cells use to get rid of waste material. Autophagy activation also degrades the core circadian protein cryptochrome 1 (CRY1) and by doing so lowers blood glucose levels. The National Institute of Aging has awarded Rajat Singh, M.D., M.B.B.S., a five-year, $2 million grant to study whether ITAD feeding prevents age-related type 2 diabetes by modulating the degradation of CRY1 by autophagy. Dr. Singh is associate professor of medicine and molecular pharmacology at Einstein. (1R01AG065985-01)