Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Regulatory Biology, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
Mercy Medical Group, Sacramento, CA, 95816, USA.
Int J Obes (Lond). 2022 Apr;46(4):696-706. doi: 10.1038/s41366-021-01038-3. Epub 2022 Jan 8.
The quality and quantity of nutrition impact health. However, chrononutrition, the timing, and variation of food intake in relation to the daily sleep-wake cycle are also important contributors to health. This has necessitated an urgent need to measure, analyze, and optimize eating patterns to improve health and manage disease. While written food journals, questionnaires, and 24-hour dietary recalls are acceptable methods to assess the quantity and quality of energy consumption, they are insufficient to capture the timing and day-to-day variation of energy intake. Smartphone applications are novel methods for information-dense real-time food and beverage tracking. Despite the availability of thousands of commercial nutrient apps, they almost always ignore eating patterns, and the raw real-time data is not available to researchers for monitoring and intervening in eating patterns. Our lab developed a smartphone app called myCircadianClock (mCC) and associated software to enable long-term real-time logging that captures temporal components of eating patterns. The mCC app runs on iOS and android operating systems and can be used to track multiple cohorts in parallel studies. The logging burden is decreased by using a timestamped photo and annotation of the food/beverage being logged. Capturing temporal data of consumption in free-living individuals over weeks/months has provided new insights into diverse eating patterns in the real world. This review discusses (1) chrononutrition and the importance of understanding eating patterns, (2) the myCircadianClock app, (3) validation of the mCC app, (4) clinical trials to assess the timing of energy intake, and (5) strengths and limitations of the mCC app.
营养的质量和数量都会影响健康。然而，与日常睡眠-觉醒周期相关的时间和食物摄入变化的时间营养学，也是健康的重要贡献因素。这就迫切需要测量、分析和优化饮食模式，以改善健康和管理疾病。虽然书面食物日记、问卷和 24 小时饮食回忆是评估能量消耗的数量和质量的可接受方法，但它们不足以捕捉能量摄入的时间和日常变化。智能手机应用程序是用于密集信息的实时食物和饮料跟踪的新方法。尽管有成千上万的商业营养应用程序，但它们几乎总是忽略了饮食模式，而且研究人员无法获得实时数据来监测和干预饮食模式。我们实验室开发了一款名为 myCircadianClock (mCC) 的智能手机应用程序和相关软件，以实现长期实时记录，从而捕获饮食模式的时间成分。mCC 应用程序在 iOS 和 Android 操作系统上运行，可用于并行研究中同时跟踪多个队列。通过使用标记时间戳的照片和正在记录的食物/饮料的注释，可以减少记录负担。在数周/数月的时间内，对自由生活个体的消费时间数据进行捕获，为真实世界中多样化的饮食模式提供了新的见解。这篇综述讨论了（1）时间营养学和理解饮食模式的重要性，（2）myCircadianClock 应用程序，（3）mCC 应用程序的验证，（4）评估能量摄入时间的临床试验，以及（5）mCC 应用程序的优势和局限性。
