A recent study found that eating late can disrupt the sleep-wake cycle and increase the risk of breast and prostate cancer.
Previous research has found that a healthy, balanced diet can reduce the risk of cancer. One Study has shown that the timing of eating can also affect your health. Adherence to a more daily eating pattern, and particularly an early dinner and a long break between the last meal and bedtime, was associated with a lower Breast– and risk of prostate cancer. This is what researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health found.
As bedtime approaches, your metabolism should slow down—not speed up like it does following eating. Late-night meals can disrupt the body’s internal clock, called the circadian rhythm, which governs our sleep and wake cycles.
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2 hours apart
To collect data, they asked participants regarding meal times, sleep, and chronotype (the times they typically slept), and completed a food frequency questionnaire. Subjects with earlier dinner (before 9:00 p.m.) and long interval between dinner and Sleep (2 hours and more) had an approximately 25 percent reduced combined cancer risk. This means a reduced risk of Breast– and prostate cancer, both together and for each cancer type individually. The researchers enrolled 872 male and 1,321 female subjects in the study and observed 621 cases of prostate cancer and 1,205 cases of breast cancer.
20 percent less cancer risk
Cancer risk decreased by 20 percent with increasing time (2 hours and more) between dinner and bedtime. This means a reduced risk of breast and prostate cancer, both together and individually. In contrast, people who regularly eat following 9 p.m. and don’t wait at least two hours to go to bed have a 25 percent higher risk of cancer.
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Disruption of the sleep-wake cycle carcinogenic
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a disruption of the sleep-wake cycle alone can be a risk factor. A disruption of this rhythm occurs when the sleep rhythm changes, i.e. when there is a loss of sleep or difficulties falling asleep or waking up during the sleep cycle. The 24-hour cycle tells our body when to sleep, eat, and wake up, and is controlled primarily by light. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which ranks human cancer risk factors, notes that night shift work alone is likely to be carcinogenic to humans. One way to reduce cancer risk is to maintain a healthy weight and quit smoking.
