THE ESSENTIAL
- When you snack, the stomach works constantly and it gets used to it. Thus, it is deregulated and no longer recognizes the “true” feeling of hunger.
- It is at the end of the day that snacking would be the least detrimental to good health
At the office before lunch, in front of the television in the evening, after a nocturnal visit to the toilet… The urge to snack occurs at any time of the day, without necessarily being hungry. It can be triggered by insufficiently satisfying meals, boredom or stress. The intake of food outside meals of the day leads to weight gain, an imbalance in the diet and promotes the appearance of various diseases, such as hypertension or diabetes.
Clearly, it is better to avoid snacking both for your line and for your health. But according to a group of American researchers, there is a “good” time to crack for a sweet or a fatty and salty food. In their study published in the journal Current Biologyscientists suggest indulging in snacking at the end of the day, as this is when the body would burn extra calories.
An experiment to analyze metabolic functioning
To arrive at this astonishing discovery, the authors recruited seven people. They asked them to stay for several days in a special laboratory, which had no clock, window, telephone or internet. All volunteers wore sensors to assess their body temperature and energy expenditure. The aim of the scientists was to observe how their metabolism worked independently of the effects of physical activity, the sleep-wake cycle and diet.
Participants had set times for going to bed and waking up. “They were doing the equivalent of traveling around the world every week, their body’s internal clock couldn’t keep up and so was oscillating at its own pace. This allowed us to measure the metabolic rate at all the different biological times. of the day”, indicated Jeanne Duffy, co-author of the work in a statement.
Snack at the end of the day!
According to the researchers, energy expenditure at rest varies according to the circadian phase and is lowest at the end of the night. “This may contribute to weight gain in people with irregular sleep schedules and underscores the importance of considering the circadian phase and sleep-wake cycle when assessing energy expenditure,” can we read in the study.
According to the results, humans would burn 10% more calories in the late afternoon and early evening than in the early morning. Clearly, it is better to snack at the end of the day than early in the morning or at night. “It’s not just what we eat, but also when we eat and when we rest that impacts the amount of calories we burn or store as fat. The regularity of habits, such as eating and sleeping is very important for overall health”explained Jeanne Duffy.