Eating late at night could be more dangerous than you think

Delaying your eating schedule is more dangerous than you think. Eating late has been associated not only with weight gain but also with an increased insulin and cholesterol levels while also impacting hormones associated with heart disease and other illnesses.

We usually associate late dinners with weight gain but scientist form Pennsylvania University say that compared to eating earlier in the day, prolonged delayed eating also leads to an increase of insulin and cholesterol levels, and negatively affects fat metabolism, and hormonal markers implicated in heart disease, diabetes and other health problems.

“We know from our sleep loss studies that when you’re sleep deprived, it negatively affects weight and metabolism in part due to late-night eating, but now these early findings, which control for sleep, give a more comprehensive picture of the benefits of eating earlier in the day,” said Namni Goel, PhD, a research associate professor of psychology in Psychiatry in the division of Sleep and Chronobiology, and lead author of the ongoing study.

“Eating later can promote a negative profile of weight, energy, and hormone markers such as higher glucose and insulin, which are implicated in diabetes, and cholesterol and triglycerides, which are linked with cardiovascular problems and other health conditions.”

For the study, the scientists form Pennsylvania University, nine healthy weight adults underwent two conditions. First they were asked to have three meals and two snacks but only between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. for eight weeks.

In the second part of the experiment, for another eight weeks, they had to change their eating behavior having the same three meals and two snacks but starting from noon till 11 p.m.

All this time, the sleep period was constant, between 11 p.m. to 9 a.m.

The participants had their metabolic measures and blood drawn at the beginning of the study, during the first period, after the two-week washout, and after the second eating condition.

The medical team measured changes in weight, metabolism and energy used, and made sure the two week washout allowed all measures to return to baseline before the next condition.

The results showed that when participants ate late, compared with the previous early condition, their weight increased but while this was expected, when measuring for which macronutrients were being metabolized, analysis showed that late eating led to fewer lipids and more carbs being metabolized.

And the scientists also found that delayed eating resulted in negative metabolic profiles for insulin, fasting glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels.

Conducting a 24-hour hormonal profile, they found that during daytime eating condition, the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, peaked earlier in the daytime, while leptin, which keeps you satiated, peaked later, suggesting that the participants received cues to eat earlier, and eating earlier likely helped them to stay satiated longer.

According to scientists, this proves that early eating may help prevent overeating in the evening and during the night.

“While lifestyle change is never easy, these findings suggest that eating earlier in the day may be worth the effort to help prevent these detrimental chronic health effects,” said Kelly Allison, PhD, an associate professor of psychology in Psychiatry and director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders, senior author on the study. “We have an extensive knowledge of how overeating affects health and body weight, but now we have a better understanding of how our body processes foods at different times of day over a long period of time.”

This was the first long-term study that has looked into the effects of eating patterns, but previous shorter studies have also pointed to similar results.