According to recent research, eating late in the evening and eating at night can have a negative impact on our health, such as causing blood sugar spikes.
From late dinners to midnight snacks, sometimes there’s no way to avoid eating later than you want. But according to one study Eating late at night could have some unpleasant side effects.
The study
The study authors emphasized that for this research they wanted to examine three key factors associated with weight regulation and obesity risk: appetite, energy expenditure (i.e. calories burned) e molecular changes in adipose tissue.
To do this, they asked 16 overweight or obese participants to follow two meal plans. The first schedule was considered an “early meal schedule,” and the second was exactly the same schedule but everything was four hours later (i.e., the early schedule dinner was at 5 p.m., and the late schedule dinner was to 9.00pm).
During both sets of meal plans, participants noted their hunger levels, provided blood samples, and had their temperature and energy expenditure measured. Some participants also had adipose tissue collected.
Meanwhile, the researchers were very careful to eliminate any composite variables from the protocol, such as sleep schedules and what the participants ate.
Based on the results, the researchers found that Eating late appears to have some link to obesity risk, particularly in those who are already overweight or obese.
In fact, the results showed that when participants followed the later meal schedule, they woke up feeling hungrier, were less effective at burning calories, and had adipose tissue that showed greater fat growth.
We found that eating four hours later makes a significant difference to our hunger levels, how we burn calories after eating, and how we store fat.
But because this research only included participants who were overweight or obese, the study authors say more research is needed to see if these findings can be extended to a larger population.
However, since we already know that eating late at night can disrupt sleep and cause blood sugar spikes, it’s worth avoiding it for other reasons if you can avoid it.
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