Avoid eating just before your bedtime, study recommends

Avoid eating just before your bedtime, study recommends

Avoid eating just before your bedtime, study recommends

 

Original on NHS Choices here.

 

“It’s not what you eat, it’s when you eat that matters: study shows timing your meals right is the key to beating obesity,” the Mail Online reports.

The headline was prompted by a small US study involving 110 university students.

Researchers gave them activity monitors to wear, measured their sleep patterns, and observed how much they ate and at what time.

The researchers were particularly interested in what they termed dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO). DLMO is when the body begins to wind down in preparation for sleep and starts producing the sleep hormone melatonin.

For most of us, our DLMO usually begins around 8pm. But the timing can vary if you do shift work.

The researchers found students with a higher body weight tended to eat more of their calories later in the day, closer to their DLMO.

This adds to previous evidence suggesting it’s good to consume more of our calories earlier in the day, when we have more opportunities to be active ahead of us. Eating large, heavy meals late in the evening has also been linked with higher body fat.

But as a single study in a small, specific sample of students, this study provides little evidence that lifestyle and eating habits have a direct effect on body weight.

As advice goes, it may be sensible to consider whether regularly eating a large, heavy meal close to bedtime is the best thing for your health and wellbeing.

Eating earlier in the day may not make you magically thinner, but it may help prevent night-time indigestion.

Where does the study come from?

The study was conducted by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the US, and the University of Murcia in Spain.

It was published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

No external sources of funding are reported for the study, although the authors declared various conflicts of interest as many of them work, or have worked, for a wide range of commercial interests.

The Mail Online’s coverage was accurate, but may have benefitted from noting the limitations of this small, cross-sectional study.

What kind of research was this?

This cross-sectional study aimed to see whether timing of eating, particularly eating at a later hour in the evening, was related to body clock and the amount of calories consumed.

The human body normally defaults to a 24-hour light-dark, wake-sleep cycle. Put simply, we wake up when it’s light and go to bed when it’s dark.

But with electrical lighting and modern lifestyles, we’re now able to control our own wakefulness, and can stay awake and eat late into the evenings.

Various studies suggest eating at a time naturally reserved for sleeping could have adverse effects on weight and metabolic health.

This study observed the eating and activity patterns and body measurements of some university students across the course of a week.

You can observe links in this type of study, but you can’t prove cause and effect.

What were the basic methods?

The study recruited 110 university students aged 18 to 22. They took part in a 30-day sleep-wake monitoring study, where they were instructed to wear a wrist actigraph monitor at all times.

An actigraph is a device that can provide a reasonably accurate estimate of time spent asleep by measuring physical activity and light exposure.

The students also kept daily sleep and exercise diaries. Sleep timing and duration was assessed from the actigraph monitor and correlated with the diaries.

For 7 consecutive days in the middle of the course, participants were asked to record all the food and drink they consumed.

They did this using a mobile app that allowed them to take photos of all the food they ate and record which meal or snack this was.

They also came in for a single night’s sleep in the study lab, where they had saliva samples taken in dim-light conditions to measure levels of the sleep hormone melatonin.

Release of melatonin marks the start of the biological night, when our body clocks begin to shift into sleep mode.

Researchers assessed meals, calories consumed, and their timing against sleep, activity and body fat.

What were the results?

The study gives a breakdown of the average calories consumed and their timings.

There was no difference between students with higher and lower body fat in the timing of melatonin release.

But researchers noticed that for individuals with higher body fat, the midpoint of all the calories they consumed for the day was later than for leaner people, and 1 hour closer to the onset of melatonin release.

And those with a calorie intake-midpoint later in the day were also more likely to consume a greater number of calories at this time. People eating more calories later in the day also tended to have less sleep.

What do the researchers conclude?

The researchers said: “These results provide evidence that the consumption of food during the circadian evening and/or night, independent of more traditional risk factors such as amount or content of food intake and activity level, plays an important role in body composition.”

Conclusions

Previous research suggests we may be better off consuming more of our calories earlier on in the day, when we have a full, active day ahead of us to use up the energy.

It’s also been observed that people who consume large calorific meals late in the evening can have a higher body weight.

In a sense, the results of this study seem plausible and don’t really say anything different from what’s already been observed. But as this is a cross-sectional study, it can’t really prove very much.

The study involved a small, select sample of US university students. Their results can’t be applied to everyone, as they have different lifestyles and sociodemographics from the general population.

And a cross-sectional study can only show associations – it can’t prove cause and effect.

The participants’ body weight was assessed at the same time as their food intake and sleep patterns.

Though again it seems plausible, we can’t assume that the students’ lifestyle and eating habits have directly caused their current body weight.

This study will doubtless contribute to the body of evidence around timing of food intake, relationship to the sleep-wake cycle, and body weight. But it provides little proof as a single piece of evidence.

The best way to achieve and maintain a healthy weight is to eat a balanced diet high in fruit and vegetables and low in saturated fat and sugars, and to get regular exercise.

Read more advice on how to eat a healthy, balanced diet.

Physical activity for children and young people (5-18 years old)

Useful for all parents of children including those on the autism spectrum.

For more info on childhood obesity please check out our post here.

Physical activity for children and young people (5-18 years old)

Physical activity for children and young people (5-18 years old)

Lifestyle Tips To Improve Circulation

Poor circulation is associated with a number of different medical conditions such as diabetes, obesity and Raynaud’s disease.

But plenty of us suffer from poor circulation so we thought we would share this useful infographic with a few useful lifestyle hits on how to improve your circulation.

 Lifestyle Tips To Improve Circulation (Infographic)
Presented By Therapy Stockings Compression Garments

Are you overfeeding your child?

Is your child eating too much?

Is your child eating too much?


Watch our video as we explore the potentially long term health implications of overfeeding your child, as new research shows the majority of toddlers are being offered much more food than they should be, with many regularly being given adult sized portions


A majority of parents are unwittingly giving their toddlers too much food, putting them at risk of obesity, according to new research from leading health and nutrition experts the Infant & Toddler Forum (ITF).

The survey of 1000 UK mums and dads revealed that 79% of parents routinely offer portions bigger than the recommended size range for pre-schoolers when serving popular meals, such as spaghetti bolognaise, drinks and treats.

The survey involved parents looking at images of portion sizes and revealed that over one in ten parents usually serve their child close to an adult-size portion of spaghetti bolognaise or cheese sandwiches.

In response to the survey findings the ITF, supported by 4Children, Family Lives and the Pre-school Learning Alliance, is launching the #rethinktoddlerportionsizes campaign. The campaign aims to encourage all families to rethink how much is on the plates of their young children, and is calling for guidance on appropriate portion sizes for families of young children to be a key public health strategy in the fight against obesity.

So just how much should you be feeding your child and should there be more specific guidelines to help parents figure out how much is too much?

Watch our video where we ask mums their thoughts on the issue as well as hearing expert advice from paediatric dietitian, Judy More and child and clinical psychologist, Gill Harris.

Healthy Diets

Healthy Diets




Do you support the idea of a “soda tax” to promote health and wellness? Please take our poll!

Do we need a soda tax to fight obesity?

Do we need a soda tax to fight obesity?

As some of our readers know Philadelphia has plans bring in the so-called “soda tax” to help “fight obesity”.

In simple terms the soda tax means that those who are distributing fizzy/soft/sugary drinks will have to pay a tax or around 50c per liter. They can choose if they pass it on to their customers or not. But I think it is safe to assume they will charge their clients a bit more.

However when prices go up consumption , it is thought, will go down. This, it is hoped, will help lower rates of obesity especially among younger people?

But is this true or is it the nanny state gone mad? Is government intervention the best way of promoting good health and wellness?

Please share your views in the poll below.

It would be great if you could share in a bit more detail your views in the comments section below.

Many thanks in advance for your help.