Do you want to stay in place? Do not eat at night, according to a study

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

SATURDAY, March 23, 2019 (HealthDay News) – Maybe you run to work and participate in activities during the day, then sit down for a big, relaxing evening meal. But new research indicates that the more you eat late in the day, the more weight you will gain.

This is the result of a one-week study involving 31 overweight and obese patients, mostly women.

"We evaluated meal and sleep patterns in overweight / obese patients at the start of a weight loss trial, before participants started the intervention," said Dr. Adnin Zaman. , senior author, researcher in endocrinology at the University of Colorado's Faculty of Medicine.

His team found that "eating later in the day was badociated with higher body mbad index (BMI) and higher body fat". BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight.

For the study, participants were enrolled in a weight loss trial comparing daily calorie limits to a restricted diet over time. In other words, once the trial started, they could only eat during certain hours of the day.

Ninety percent of the participants were women. Their average age was 36 years old.

A week before the study, they were equipped with electronic devices to monitor their activity and sleep. They were also asked to take pictures with a mobile phone of everything that they ate. The photos were timestamped with the help of an application called MealLogger.

Zaman and his colleagues did not define the hours that would constitute an "end-of-day consumption" and did not follow the calories or nutritional values.

The team noted that participants who ate later in the day also went to sleep later, although all slept an average of seven hours per night.

Participants' food consumption lasted 11 hours a day, with the last hour usually scheduled around 20 hours. The study found that those who ate later tended to have a higher BMI and body fat.

Although most of the participants are women, Zaman said the results could "apply equally to men".

But, she added, the study was purely observational and further research was needed to understand why eating late in the day could lead to obesity.

His team is already looking into whether eating earlier in the day, when people tend to be more active, could help prevent obesity.

"Future studies are also needed when these methods are applied to people with normal BMI and compared to an overweight / obese population," Zaman said.

Lona Sandon is Program Director at the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas. She had a preview of the results and was not surprised.

Sandon has his own theories about why eating late in the day can lead to weight gain.

"When you consume more dietary calories earlier in the day, they are more likely to be used as a source of energy and less likely to be stored as fat because of the presence of Different hormones, "she said. You can also feel more satisfied with fewer calories.

"Eating later in the day, especially at night, seems to be related to storing more body fat because of the hormonal differences at this time of day," added Sandon.

His advice: Have breakfast and enjoy a hearty lunch.

"If you skip breakfast, have a light lunch and end up eating late at night because you barely eat all day, just do not eat at night will not work," said Sandon. "Making breakfast the most hearty meal of the day, with at least a little something for breakfast, allowed some of my clients to cut their meal times or settle for a light dinner . "

The results should be presented Saturday at a meeting of the Endocrine Society in New Orleans. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until it is published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are more concerned with healthy eating.

SOURCES: Adnin Zaman, MD, researcher in endocrinology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora; Lona Sandon, Ph.D., R.D.N., L.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Clinical Nutrition and Director of the Coordinated Master's Program in Clinical Nutrition at the Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas at Dallas; Meeting of the Endocrine Society, New Orleans, March 23, 2019