Calories burned, hunger pangs… Eating late doesn’t just have one health consequence
According to researchers from Boston in the United States, having a meal at late hours has several deleterious effects such as increasing hunger and reducing calories burned.
Evening meal time can affect your health. Indeed, science has shown for several years now thata period should be respected between dinner and bedtime. A new study reveals that eat late has a significant impact on our energy expenditure and our appetite. Their results are published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
“We wanted to test the mechanisms that may explain why eating late increases the risk ofobesity”said lead author Frank AJL Scheer in a statement. “Previous research by us and others has shown that eating late is associated with an increased risk of obesity, increased body fat and weight loss scaled down. We wanted to understand why.”
For this research, conducted by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of Harvard Medical School’s largest teaching hospitals, scientists followed sixteen overweight or obese patients. Two protocols were developed: in the first, the volunteers had to respect a meal schedule, in the second, four hours later than the dinner of the first. All ate the same meals, and had fixed sleep and wake times, a statement said. During the follow-up, the volunteers had to regularly inform about their level of appetiteand examinations – blood samples, measurement of body temperature, energy expenditure – were carried out.
The results show that eating later “had profound effects on hunger and appetite-regulating hormones”, says the hospital. Levels of leptin, which signals satiety, decreased over the 24 hours in the late meal group, but not in the early meal group. Also, the volunteers of the second group burned their calories at a slower rate. Eating late meals also led to changes in fatty tissue, thus promoting fat growth.
This study is “consistent” with previous research investigating the link between evening eating schedule and the likelihood of developing obesity, the authors conclude in the statement.
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