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A new study found that the number of calories burned by an individual at rest fluctuates at different times of the day. At rest, people burn 10% more calories in the late afternoon and early evening than in the early hours of the morning.
The results help explain why inconsistent meal and sleeping schedules make people gain more weight.
Kirsi-Marja Zitting of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School is the lead author of the study.
"Doing the same thing at a time of day consumes a lot more calories than doing the same thing at a different time of day surprised us," Zitting said.
In order to examine the changes during the day in the metabolism from the effects of physical activity, diet and sleep-wake cycle, the researchers studied seven people in a laboratory special, without indication of the time.
Study participants assigned hours to bed and get up, and these hours were postponed to four hours later each night. This equates to traveling west over four time zones each day for three weeks.
"Because they were doing the equivalent of going around the world every week, the internal clock of their body could not keep up with the pace and was therefore oscillating at its own pace," said the co – the author of the study, Jeanne Duffy. "It allowed us to measure the metabolic rate at all biological hours of the day."
The data showed that the energy expenditure at rest is lowest during the drop in core body temperature that occurs during a biological night. In addition, the energy expenditure was highest about 12 hours later – during the biological afternoon.
"It's not just what we eat, but eating – and resting – affects the amount of energy we burn or store as fat," said Duffy. "The regularity of habits such as eating and sleeping is very important for general health."
The team will then study how the appetite and the body's response to food vary with the time. The experts also study the influence of the timing, duration and regularity of sleep on the responses.
The study is published in the journal Current biology.
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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Editor
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