The Impact of Nighttime Eating on Metabolism: Insights from an Endocrinologist

2023-09-10 05:39:01

There are several reasons why it is not recommended to eat at night. We will look into them together with Natalya Kirdyankina, an endocrinologist and expert at the Verba Mayr health center.

Eating the same calorie in the morning and evening does not have the same benefits

Source: Freepik.com

The question of why you shouldn’t eat at night can be answered by studies conducted among people who work at night. Shift work creates a risk of chronic diseases – cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes. It’s all regarding influencing our circadian system. The circadian system is a network of interactions between cells in the body that influence most processes: metabolism, hunger, meal timing and eating behavior.

Peripheral clocks in the body control circadian rhythms in every cell. Unusual interactions between system components (eg, due to untimely food intake) can lead to adverse health outcomes, including weight gain, obesity, and poor metabolic health outcomes.

Our internal “clock” is regulated by the Earth’s 24-hour cycle as it receives external light signals through the eyes and optic nerve. Only with the relatively recent widespread adoption of electric lighting have people been able to choose their own light-dark cycles and extend their waking hours well into the night. The timing and composition of food consumed is also an important factor for synchronizing the circadian system.

Eating later in the day and higher energy intake during the biological night (when normal resting and fasting cycles would normally occur) leads to fat accumulation.

Humans are evolutionarily adapted to spend regarding two-thirds of their 24-hour day active, eating and storing energy to support metabolic processes. And they usually spend a third of their time sleeping, being in a state of fasting – at this time, the accumulated energy is activated for self-regulation of the body.

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Let’s return to those who work at night. According to research, the average daily energy consumption of shift workers was significantly higher than that of those who worked a regular daily schedule. The diet of shift workers was completely different, and meals (due to attempts to adjust to the schedule) were irregular, characterized by a large number of snacks and fatty foods, and eating meals at night.

How meal timing affects the metabolic process:

Decreased thermic effect of food (TEF) is a mechanism for increased body fat in response to late meals. TEP is the amount of energy required to digest and assimilate food. Thus, consuming a snack containing 20% ​​of the total daily diet at 1 am leads to a lower TEP than the same snack at 9 am or at 5 pm. And a lower TPR promotes weight gain over time. The rhythm of the hormone leptin, which regulates appetite, is disrupted, and the concentration of insulin increases. As a result of chronic misalignment of the circadian clock, leptin concentrations increase during the day and night, and this promotes overeating. Glucose tolerance also changes during the day, peaking during the day when food is usually eaten, and then decreasing at night, during sleep and fasting. Therefore, if you shift your meals to a later date, you can weaken glycemic control.

Nighttime circadian processes promote sleep and fasting through regulatory hormones such as melatonin and insulin, while eating and activity should predominate during daytime hours, optimizing metabolic processes for better energy expenditure.

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