As the third spotlight for the European Biological Rhythms Society (EBRS) congress, taking place in Luebeck in Northern Germany from the 24th to 28th of August 2025, Prof. Satchidananda (Satchin) Panda (Regulatory Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California) talks about several breakthrough discoveries from past years of him and other chronobiologists. In this first part, Satchin explains the relevance of time-restricted eating (TRE) with people nowadays eating around the clock and how he faced a lot of pushback from the nutrition field after his initial discovery of TRE's health benefits in mice. We discuss how food photos eventually helped him move forward with his research. He also tells us about his memories from attending previous EBRS congresses and why you should join this year. Lastly, Satchin shares some rather unique advice for early-career researchers.

Chapters:

(0:00:40) Intro

(0:05:52) Satchin Panda

(0:09:03) People eat around the clock

(0:20:35) Analyzing food photos

(0:30:59) Is late eating or reduced fasting the problem?

(0:44:00) Diurnal changes in glucose tolerance

(0:49:07) EBRS congress memories

(0:56:57) Advice for early-career researchers

(1:05:48) Outro & Teaser to Part 2

Studies that Satchin refers to:

Time-Restricted Feeding without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet (Hatori et al. 2012)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413112001891

A Smartphone App Reveals Erratic Diurnal Eating Patterns in Humans that Can Be Modulated for Health Benefits (Gill & Panda 2015)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26411343/

Feasibility of time-restricted eating and impacts on cardiometabolic health in 24-h shift workers: The Healthy Heroes randomized control trial (Manoogian et al. 2022)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2022.08.018

Satchin’s resources:

His book: “The Circadian Code”

His podcast: “Performance around the clock” (also on Spotify)

“MyCircadianClock” app

Panda Lab homepage: https://panda.salk.edu/