You are when you eat
Meal timing controls your body clock! New research shows that when you eat is as important for your health as what you eat.
In 10 seconds? Eating ‘out-of-sync’ with your body clock — especially during the night — can be disastrous for your physical and mental wellbeing. This is because the process of eating, and the resulting metabolic products, help to maintain your body’s natural clock.
Surely eating is for calorie intake, no matter when those calories arrive? Emerging evidence shows that the process of eating food helps to reinforce your body clock — or what scientists call circadian rhythm — which is set predominantly by exposure to light.
You mean our bodies are just synced to daylight? Yes, sunlight is key to setting the central body clock, and is complemented by other feedback, including the times that we feed and fast. If eating isn’t done in daylight hours this can lead to an ‘uncoupling of clocks’ in the body.
How does an uncoupled body clock affect my health? Irregular eating habits have been shown to lead to cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders and Type 2 diabetes.
Who is most at risk? In today’s constantly illuminated and connected world, we are all at increased risk of developing unhealthy eating and sleeping habits. Those at most risk however are shift workers or those whose jobs dictate that they work after dark.
So what can we do? There is light at the end of the tunnel, literally. Bright light therapy can significantly curb your appetite. Trials proved that such interventions result in as much as 30% less food eaten after the evening meal.
Anything simpler? Train yourself to eat ‘in a window’. Genetic analysis performed on fruit flies and rodents indicates, limiting food intake to a maximum 12-hour window can prevent excessive body weight gain and improve sleep. So follow the old wisdom and have your dinner earlier. (Read more).
Have friends who regularly binge at night? They may be suffering from ‘Night-time eating syndrome’.Excessive intake of calories during the night, when the biological body clock is expecting sleep, is now being recognised as a form of eating disorder.Recent studies show that people with night-time eating syndrome (NES) have notable differences in their level of specific hormones (melatonin, leptin and cortisol) that control our circadian rhythms, hunger and stress levels, which can lead to downstream effects like obesity, depression, lack of employment and conflict in relationships.
This research was curated by Sparrho Hero and Research Prize Winner Dr Nicolas Gutierrez, affiliated to the Human Genetics Laboratory at the University del Valle, Colombia.
