Courtney Peterson

  • Assistant Professor at University of Alabama, Birmingham

Credentials

  • PhD in Medical Science

Education

  • PhD in Medical Science – Harvard University

Affiliations

  • University of Alabama, Birmingham
  • Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Research Focus

  • Nutrition
  • Intermittent Fasting
  • Metabolic Health

Notable Publications

  • Effects of Early Time-Restricted Feeding on Body Weight and Metabolic Disease Risk in Adults (2018)
  • Time-Restricted Feeding Increases Insulin Sensitivity in Individuals at Metabolic Risk (2019)
  • Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging, and Disease (2020)

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Awards & Honors

  • NIDDK Outstanding New Investigator Award (2018)

Key Contributions

  • Demonstrated the benefits of time-restricted eating on metabolic health in humans.
  • Provided evidence on the role of intermittent fasting in weight loss and disease prevention.

Contact

[email protected]

Other Resources

Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 0:00 0
“we found early time restricted dating had no negative effects on muscle mass and this was really important because the largest study previous or prior to ours found that time restricted eating when practiced by skipping breakfast actually negatively affects muscle mass”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 0:54 0
“a 14-week study comparing two groups both were calorie restricted but while one was eating over 12 or more hours per day the other was eating in less than eight hours so essentially looking at whether shortening our eating window and starting that eating window early in the day leads to benefits with regards to weight loss and other cardio metabolic risk factors over and Beyond standard calorie restriction”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 3:55 0
“we had participants eat over about an eight hour period early in the day and then they fasted for 16 hours a day so for your listeners who are used to some of the terminology in the field we we might call this a 16 8 diet 16 hours of fasting eight hours of eating”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 6:05 0
“reduce their caloric intake by about 500 calories a day”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 6:44 0
“half of them did that across 12 or more hours a day so not even thinking about what hours am I doing this in just wake up and count calories and then the other half were also doing that but they were eating this early time-restricted eating window”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 9:33 0
“the average participant in our study had pre-diabetes and pre-hypertension”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 12:02 0
“if you put patients in a respiratory chamber and they do early time restricted eating they actually burn more fat over a 24-hour period”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 13:11 0
“we were also interested in seeing how it affected their what we call cardiometabolic Health so these are their risk factors for diabetes so your blood sugar control so we looked at fasting blood sugar we looked at fasting insulin levels and then something called Homa IR which estimates how insulin or resistant or sensitive someone is”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 15:10 0
“participants lost more weight when they did early time restricted eating so they lost an extra 2.3 kilograms over the 14-week program”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 17:55 0
“the early time restricted eating group on average lost 2.3 kilograms more body weight... the paper was it about six kilograms of total body weight lost in that time restricted eating group and three point something or around four for the group that wasn't restricting their eating window.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 18:20 0
“both groups lost quite a decent amount of weight, but there was that 2.3 kilogram advantage to restricting the eating window.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 18:37 0
“consuming around 200-214 or something calories less per day.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 23:29 0
“they found that if you front load calories early in the day you actually reduce mean 24-hour blood sugar levels”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 24:18 0
“genetics plays a big part of that and we see that with Asian populations for example some people can store more subcutaneous fat”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 24:32 0
“I've seen various studies looking at like sleep deprivation if you deprive someone of sleep that might make them more susceptible to increasing visceral fat”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 24:44 0
“is it possible if you're eating sort of out of alignment with your circadian rhythms that could change fat storage sort of make mechanics and and where we're actually laying down fat”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 29:12 0
“we found guremlin levels were lower at the end of The Fast which was kind of the opposite of what we're expecting we thought at the end of an 18-hour fast people would be quite hungry but we found just favorable improvements in a bunch of appetite hormones also including pyy which is a satiety hormone we found that was better activated in the evening.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 29:59 0
“you mentioned there there was greater weight loss of that 2.3 kilograms in the early time restricted eating group”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 30:57 0
“early time restricted eating was more effective for lowering diastolic blood pressure our results for systolic blood pressure were the same in magnitude they just didn't quite reach statistical significance because there was more variability in that endpoint”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 35:14 0
“ask the question were these was this extra benefit in diastolic blood pressure due to weight loss and the answer was most of it was not due to the extra weight loss”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 35:40 0
“we didn't see any major side effects in this study other than what participants called hunger or malaise but we've done other studies where some participants have reported they were more thirsty”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 36:39 0
“we found pretty clear data that the time of day and the fasting duration one of these two or both of these two affects your body weight or affects how much weight you can lose”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 37:00 0
“we also looked at mood in this study and we ask people about their energy levels, feelings of depression and dejection... and we found that people reported greater improvements in mood with the early time restricted eating”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 38:28 0
“is there any benefit to me doing the early time restricted eating if I'm also not counting calories will there still be an advantage for me in terms of my body weight and my metabolic health”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 41:04 0
“one is you could follow the old adage of eating breakfast like a king lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper or there's some data suggesting that doing time restricted eating by skipping breakfast and eating in the middle of the day still has a number of benefits just not as many.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 41:24 0
“two larger clinical trials came out earlier this year comparing early versus later in the daytime restricted eating one of those clinical trials found greater benefits for weight loss for early time restricted eating greater benefits for blood sugar control for the gut microbiota and for inflammation so early in the day was better.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 41:48 0
“the second study weight loss was about the same whether you did early versus middle of the day time restricted eating but there were still better benefit greater benefits for blood sugar control.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 42:50 0
“data from animal studies suggests that if animals practice time restricted eating five out of seven days a week they still get a lot of the same benefits not to the same degree but they're still getting benefits.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 43:10 0
“we did what was called a per protocol analysis where we looked at people who consistently stuck with early time restricted eating five days a week every week and we found among these individuals they had they lost more weight they had better blood sugar control.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 43:35 0
“they slept less and at first we were a little worried about this right normally if people sleep less you think that's a bad thing but was really fascinating is they also reported greater energy levels so I'm now wondering if they have less of a need for sleep with their early time restricted eating because there's either better sleep consolidation or there's just a longer time to repast repair rest and repair before sleep and so therefore they're sleeping less.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 46:33 0
“so they did a study where they took people who didn't normally work the night shift but they put them on a night shift and then they had them it was what we call a crossover study so meaning they tried both eating during the night shift as well as eating during the daytime and their blood sugar control was actually better when they ate during the daytime.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 48:10 0
“the data from Frank shears group suggests that they should eat right before they go to sleep so say they come off their night shift at around 7 A.M in the morning they should eat right then go to sleep and then eat again when they wake up.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 50:36 0
“there's some cross-sectional data and some data from randomized clinical trials so there's some cross-sectional data suggesting that those who eat over an 11 hour or shorter time window have a 36 reduced risk of breast cancer recurrence.”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 52:23 0
“so the fuel that they rely on actually produces more molecular damage more free radicals so they actually end up dying at a higher rate”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 52:34 0
“if you fast animals prior to chemotherapy and radiation you boost the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation dramatically”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 53:18 0
“we're testing whether it can reduce the negative side effects of chemotherapy and radiation”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 55:02 0
“certain forms of intermittent fasting may be worse for cancer”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 58:09 0
“time-restricted eating increases genes associated with autophagy and we've also found that it up regulates a particular Gene called cert1 which is famous for being known as the longevity Gene”

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Fasting, Metabolic Health, Shift-Work and Cancer – with Dr. Courtney Peterson | The Proof EP 232
Early Time-Restricted Eating Impact on Health and Weight Loss Study 58:25 0
“we also find a lot of changes in antioxidant defense systems and in circadian gene expression”

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