Patriot Health Digest
Many things influence when someone stops eating, like appetite, culture, habits, work schedules and social settings.
The top concern for most folks is that having a meal too late could lead to weight gain. Everybody has an opinion about the best hour to cut off their eating, but you might wonder if any of this is based on real research. This article goes into the best time to stop eating and the consequences of eating late.
It’s proven that eating more than what your body requires contributes to gaining weight. Thus, if you are doing a lot of nightly eating on top of your normal eating, you could gain weight.
Recently, new studies have looked at the different timing of meals and their effects on people’s health.
To go along with your body’s clock, the currently supported eating time window is 8–12 hours per day, during daytime hours. Eating away from this window could lead your body to breakdown food less efficiently, which can lead to weight gain.
One study discovered that when mice were given a high fat meal along with their circadian rhythm, they had much lower weight gain than mice given the same high fat food outside their rhythm.
Meanwhile, many intermittent fasting routine say you should skip breakfast and have most of your meals later on in the day.
However, there are studies that say eating a larger breakfast and a smaller meal in the evening could lead to better blood sugar, lower body fat, and decreased hunger.
One theory that may support the idea of not eating at night is that your body’s ability to process food you eat — which is called food-induced thermogenesis — is different throughout your day. It is higher in the morning and lower in the evening.
More studies show that eating late can increase your risk of metabolic syndromes including insulin resistance, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
One study researched metabolic effects of a dinner at 9 p.m. versus a normal dinner at 6 p.m. in 20 people. The 9 p.m dinner gave higher blood sugar levels the next morning and a lower breakdown of fat, compared to the 6 p.m dinner.
Author: Scott Dowdy
