Wellness Wednesday

Meal Timing Determines Your Diet's Outcome

If you eat most of your meals at night, you may be impairing your body's fat metabolism and your diet's progress.

It's around 11pm-12am and your experiencing late night hunger pangs. You have two choices: The first would be to drink some water and go to bed, but the second one, to stay up and finish that TV show your watching while eating some chips and queso, is much more appealing. What makes the second choice that much more appealing, is that you didn't eat that much during the day and figure you have enough calories to spare for a little midnight snack. But what if the caloric intake balance for the body doesn't work that way?

According to a new study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, eating late at night, especially after delaying eating from earlier in the day, can be dangerous. The delayed eating increases weight and negatively affects fat metabolism, insulin levels, cholesterol levels, and hormonal markers that lead to heart disease, diabetes and other chronic health issues. The study included nine healthy weight adults who took part in two sets of experiments. The first experiment had all the adults eat three meals and two snacks between 8am-7pm for eight weeks, while the second experiment had the adults eat three meals and two snacks between 12pm-11pm. The sleep pattern was kept constant at 11pm-9am and blood was drawn weekly while hormonal profiles were taken every 24 hours.

At the conclusion of the eight week trials, those that conducted the survey evaluated the biomarkers of the subjects through the tests taken. The research team found that the second group exhibited higher insulin, fasting glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol levels and experienced an overall weight gain compared to the first group. The researcher also found that ghrelin (appetite stimulant) peaked earlier in the day while leptin (appetite depressant) peaked later. This data suggests that those who ate earlier were able to stay more full throughout the day and stave off hunger better than those who ate later in the day.