The
main motive of the team was to understand whether eating late actually
alters metabolism in a way that advances obesity. In the past, many
dietitians have noted that eating late dinners can lead to numerous
health hazards like heart diseases, and obesity, among others. Experts
say that when someone delays eating, their bodies will delay preparing
to sleep. This eventually can affect one’s memory or regulation for the
next day.
This
new study elaborates on that point and helps us understand exactly how
regular late dinners can be directly associated with weight gain.
What does the study prove?
The
researchers studied 20 healthy volunteers (10 men and 10 women) to
determine how their bodies metabolized dinner eaten at 10 p.m. instead
of 6 p.m. All the participants in the study went to sleep at 11 p.m.
The
findings revealed that when eating a late dinner, blood sugar levels
were higher, and the amount of fat burned was lower. This was also the
case with people who had small meals.
Other researchers have done
similar work looking at circadian rhythms and diet, and other labs have
shown that if you eat out of phase with your body’s normal circadian
rhythm, you don’t metabolize glucose the same way,” Jun said.
Furthermore, the study also
found that compared with those who ate dinner earlier, the blood sugar
levels of late eaters were almost 20 percent higher and their fat
burning was reduced by almost 10 percent.
“The effects we have seen in
healthy volunteers might be more pronounced in people with obesity or
diabetes, who already have a compromised metabolism,” said the study’s
first author Chenjuan Gu, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher at Johns
Hopkins University, in a statement.
Interestingly, the researchers
also found that not everyone responds to eating late meals the same way.
According to them, people who were used to sleeping earlier performed
the worst when they were given a late meal. People who were used to
staying up well beyond midnight, on the other hand, appeared to be
unaffected by the change in their meal.
Thus, it was concluded that
there are differences in people’s metabolism that either makes them more
susceptible to late eating or it simply doesn’t affect them.
These findings may help people cultivate good eating habits
While this new study has been
conducted with young adults and healthy weight volunteers, it still
provides us with sufficient information to modify our eating habits.
This proves that cultivating good eating habits is essential for disease
prevention. These eating practices could even affect the risk of
chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease later on in life.
According
to the research team, dinner is the largest meal of the day for most
adults with regard to calories. This is because owing to our hectic
lifestyles these days, most of us rush through breakfast and lunch. This
leads to us eating later and more than we should. In fact, rushing
through your breakfast and lunch makes you crave a large meal late at
night. As this study has emphasized, this can result in some
difficulties with glucose or fat metabolism even in young people.
So what should we do?
One of the best ways to ensure that you don’t crave a large late-night meal is to have some small, high protein snacks
in the late afternoon. Experts recommend having Greek yogurt sprinkled
with nuts or mixed nuts and fruits minus the sugary additives in the
late afternoon to help curb your appetite a bit. These healthy
snack-size meals will make sure that you don’t have to eat later than
expected.
You
could even try a small salad with grilled chicken, half a sandwich and
fruit, or a cup of vegetable soup and a glass of low-fat milk. Experts
say that our aim should be to eat our largest meal at breakfast or lunch
whenever possible.
The
recent study is easily one of the most detailed ones of its kind. The
participants were vigorously monitored – their blood samples were drawn
every hour and their activities and sleep were monitored for two weeks
before they came to the lab. The researchers also gave them a stable
isotope tracer that helped them track the amount of fat that was burned
or oxidized.
With
the findings we have seen, the study at least proves that there are
sufficient biological explanations for how food timing can affect the
way our body handles those calories. Hence, we must take lessons from it
and make changes in our eating routines for our health’s sake.