2023-07-10 07:44:05
by Elena Meli
A study on mice explains how the moment in which you eat changes the activity of genes and can therefore have an effect both on the possibility of losing weight and on the metabolism in general
Eating a slice of bread with butter and jam for breakfast or choosing it for dinner is not the same thing, even if the calories are the same: more and more research shows that it is not only what you eat that matters but also when you eat it and a research on animals has demonstrated, in the journal Cell Metabolism, that this may partly depend on a different gene expression induced by the different moment in which it comes into contact with food.
The moment matters
The investigation verified that in mice the temporal restriction on feeding, i.e. allowing the animals to eat in certain hours and keeping them fasting in others, influences the expression of the genes found in as many as twenty-two different areas of the genome. 70 percent of genes showed changes in their expression following timed feeding, including for example 40 percent of genes expressed in the hypothalamus and pancreas, organs important for regulating the body’s hormonal balance. After all, the functionality of organs, tissues and cells changes during the day: the transcription of genes is more or less efficient depending on the moment, so the enzymes work in a different way and therefore the cells of the various body districts are more or less active. Each organ and system has its own cycle of activity and rest which must be respected to feel good: in practice this translates into an ability to better metabolize food and nutrients in the morning, when the body needs to receive energy to use it during activity during the day, and less in the evening, when instead the digestive system is at rest, not ready to receive food nor equipped to metabolise it.
When and what to eat
Breakfast is an important meal and one where you can indulge in a few more whims, while dinner should always be frugal and it is advisable not to eat late in the evening. The satiety hormones work less at night, the liver cannot handle fat well, insulin resistance grows because it is not the moment in which energy from sugars is expected to be used: if you get used to nibbling after dinner very likely to gain weight and be more likely to develop metabolic syndrome or diabetes. Even any intermittent fasting therefore must be synchronized with these rhythms and with the needs of the body, to maximize results and reduce difficulties and risks: a method that provides for eating especially in the first part of the day and does not touch food for hours of darkness easier to follow and basically a physiological diet, which puts the metabolism on hold when it is expected to be. Feeding only during a more or less long time window of the day, therefore, appears as a viable solution for which there is already a lot of positive scientific evidence in terms of health and weight control.
July 10, 2023 (change July 10, 2023 | 07:37)
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