To avoid cancer, allow some time between eating and sleeping

Eating at an early hour or leaving an interval of at least two hours for bedtime is associated, in both cases, with a lower risk of breast and prostate cancer. Specifically, people who dine before 9 pm or wait at least 2 hours before bed, they have about 20% less risk of these types of cancer than those who do the evening meal after 22 hours. or those who go to bed immediately after dinner.

These are the main findings of a survey of the Institute of Global Health of Barcelona (ISGlobal), a center promoted by the Banking Foundation "la Caixa" which, for the first time, analyzed relationship between meal and sleep schedules and the risk of cancer in people.

Up to now, studies on food and cancer have focused on eating habits, for example, by analyzing whether people eat red meat, fruits or vegetables, or establish relationships with the amount of food and obesity.

However, no attention has been given to other factors surrounding such a daily act, such as admission times and activities that are conducted before and after. Recent evidence in experimental studies indicates that the moment is important and shows that doing it late affects health.

The objective of this study, published in the journal International Journal of Cancer was to assess whether meal and sleep schedules may be related to breast cancer risk and prostate – two of the most common in the world and more related to night work and circadian disruption or alteration of our biological clock. To do this, the lifestyle and chronotype of each person were taken into account, an individual attribute related to the preference for daytime or nighttime activities.

As part of the MCC-Spain project, co-funded by the research consortium Biomedical Network in Epidemiology and Public Health (Ciberesp), data were evaluated for 621 prostate cancer cases and 1205 breast and 872 men. 1321 randomly selected women in primary health centers.

Food is associated with a lower risk of cancer, "explains Manolis Kogevinas, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the publication. For Kogevinas, these results "underscore the importance of taking into account circadian rhythm in diet and cancer studies."

In addition, the researcher points out, in the case of confirming these results, " will have implications for recommendations on cancer prevention, which currently does not take into account meal times. "This would have a particular impact on crops like those in southern Europe, where dinner is late," he adds.