Eating too late can make you obese, a new study confirms. Good news? Eat early and keep fat at bay

A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a charter member of Mass General Brigham’s health care system, has found that eating late at night may increase your chances of developing obesity because it increases hunger, burns fewer calories, and changes in adipose tissue.

The results of the study showed that eating later had a “profound effect on hunger” and the appetite-regulating hormones leptin and ghrelin, which influence our urge to eat. “Specifically, levels of the hormone leptin, which signals satiety, decreased over the 24 hours in the late eating condition compared to the early eating condition,” the study said.

The study was conducted by Frank AJL Scheer, PhD, Director of the Medical Chronobiology Program in Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, and Nina Vujovic, PhD, Investigator in the Medical Chronobiology Program in Brigham’s Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders.

HOW MEALS AFFECT BODY FAT

Priyanka Rohatgi, Chief Clinical Dietitian at Apollo Hospital, deciphers the findings and says that timing of eating significantly affects energy expenditure, appetite and molecular pathways in adipose tissue. “Nighttime snacking is often done while streaming, watching TV, or even reading. Your attention is more likely to be on the TV show or book you are reading than on the number of calories you are consuming. Obesity and the metabolic syndrome are risk factors for late eating. It might be time to break the habit if you tend to go to the kitchen in the hours leading up to the night,” she adds.

She goes on to say that eating high-fat, salty, and sugary foods (HFSS) at irrational times compromises gut health, leading to inflammation.

Even a midnight snack, says Dr. Amrita Ghosh, a consultant physician at Fortis CDOC Hospital, can lower the satiety hormone. “This will make us relatively hungrier the next day, forcing us to increase caloric intake. On the other hand, the body’s calorie burning power is reduced. This process will lead to fat accumulation and weight gain, which will further spread into metabolic diseases like obesity and diabetes. It also happens when you eat less during the day,” she says.

HOW LATE MEALS AFFECT OUR CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS

According to Dipti Khatuja, senior nutritionist at Fortis Memorial Research Institute Gurgaon, “Late night eating causes clock discipline desynchronization during which the gut clock is out of sync with the normal body clock. This leads to increases in insulin resistance, weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes and several metabolic diseases. Disruption of this circadian rhythm has also been shown to lead to gut dysbiosis. Night cleansing substances digest and flush out dirt, mucus and old intestinal cells. But when that cycle or rhythm is disrupted, they don’t work efficiently.” Gut dysbiosis affects the numbers of good bacteria and throws them off balance against bad bacteria. This, in turn, affects our metabolism, digestion, and accelerates conditions for metabolic disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.

HOW TO SCHEDULE MEALS

dr Ghosh recommends the age-old mantra “eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper,” which implies quantity rather than quality of food at different times of the day. “We’ve been told for ages to eat less at dinner, now this study shows why,” she adds.

According to Khatuja, light and meal times are the most powerful external influences affecting the internal clock, and this needs to be synchronized with the master clock. This needs to be done so that we don’t disrupt the circadian heart rhythm. Also, our cellular repair occurs just six hours after our last food intake and increases over an additional six hours. A total of 12 hours are needed for full body cleansing after our last meal. So we’re shortening the window of opportunity to heal ourselves. Guided by a circadian rhythm, our pancreas produces high levels of insulin in the morning and early afternoon, but slows down in the afternoon. At night, the insulin in our bloodstream falls further, allowing glucose to stay in our arteries longer.

“As a clinical nutritionist, I would recommend everyone to eat early, be light and get plenty of fiber in their diet. This should be combined with half an hour to 45 minutes of physical activity, as meal times directly affect your body’s metabolism, which can protect you from various degenerative diseases,” she adds.

PAST RESEARCH PROVES AGAIN

Research only confirms many previous studies. In 2012, Salk Institute researcher Satchin Panda published a landmark study in which he fed genetically identical mice a high-fat diet. Half of the mice ate all of their food in eight hours while the other half ate at will, whenever they wanted. After three months, the mice, whenever they wanted, suffered from obesity, diabetes, liver disease and a host of other ugly conditions. But the control group remained healthy, with normal weight, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Their livers were less fatty than the free-eating mice, their motor coordination was better, and their whole bodies were less inflamed.

Other researchers followed Panda’s work and even tested it on humans. In several studies, volunteers who ate in narrower time slots lost weight and lowered their blood pressure.

In a 2012 Israeli study, obese volunteers enrolled in weight loss programs, both of which included a total of 1,400 calories per day. One group ate 700 calories for breakfast, 500 for lunch, and 200 for dinner, while the other group ate the opposite: 200 for breakfast, 500 for lunch, 700 for dinner. After three months, the first group lost more weight, had better blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and were much more sensitive to insulin than the other group.