2023-12-14 14:11:32
Updated Thursday, December 14, 2023 – 13:11
A study of more than 100,000 people published in Nature Communications suggests that the time at which we eat the first or last meal of the day has an impact on cardiovascular health
DREAMSTIMENutrition Poor diet kills more people in the world than tobacco
The time at which we have breakfast and dinner has an impact on our cardiovascular health. This is confirmed by an international study in which the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) participated, which suggests that eating the first or last meal of the day late is related to a greater risk of developing cardiovascular problems.
The study, in which in addition to the Spanish center promoted by the la Caixa Foundation, teams from the French Institute for Agronomic Research (INRAE), the French Institute for Health and Medical Research (Inserm) and the Sorbonne University also participated. of Paris, has also revealed that there is evidence to suggest that a longer overnight fast is associated with a lower risk of suffering from cerebrovascular diseases, such as stroke.
The results of the work, which has followed more than 100,000 people from the NutriNet-Santé cohort for 13 years (between 2009 and 2022), have been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Early feeding patterns
“The results of our study show that having late eating habits, having a first meal later than 9 in the morning or having dinner later than 9 at night can be related to a greater risk of developing diseases cardiovascular diseases, especially among women,” said Anna Palomar, ISGlobal researcher and first author of the study, who highlights that “the work, which needs to be replicated in other studies, supports the importance of adopting earlier eating schedule patterns by coupling them to “an extended overnight fast with an early last meal instead of skipping breakfast.”
The results “are conclusive with previous experimental and observational studies. These findings suggest that beyond the nutritional quality of the diet itself, recommendations related to meal times can help promote better cardiovascular health,” he added.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers analyzed data from 103,389 participants in the French cohort NutriNet-Santé (79% of whom were women, with a mean age of 42 years) and studied associations between food intake patterns and cardiovascular disease. To reduce the risk of possible bias, they took into account a large number of confounding factors, especially sociodemographic (age, sex, family situation, etc.), nutritional quality of diet, lifestyle and sleep cycle.
Why does time matter?
The results show that eating your first meal late (such as when you skip breakfast) is related to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Specifically, the researchers found a 6% increase in risk for each hour of delay. Thus, a person who eats for the first time at 9 in the morning is 6% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than someone who eats at 8.
As for the last meal of the day, late dinner (after 9 at night) is associated with a 28% increased risk of suffering from cerebrovascular diseases, such as stroke, compared to having dinner before 8 at night, especially in women.
Finally, a longer duration of overnight fast -the time elapsed between the last meal of the day and the first of the next day- is associated with a lower risk of cerebrovascular disease, which supports the idea of eating the first and last meals of the day earlier.
“The time at which we eat plays an important role in our metabolism since it has influence on our body’s internal clock“Eating late at night can disrupt this clock, which can lead to cardiometabolic problems such as weight gain, disruptions in lipid metabolism, and increased inflammation. Likewise, eating during the body’s resting phase, when levels of the sleep hormone or melatonin are high, could lead to glucose intolerance and higher blood sugar levels. Certain animal studies show that delaying the first meal of the day or eating late at night is related to an increase in body weight, liver fat, and alterations in gene expression related to lipid metabolism,” she concludes.
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