The relationship between meal times and obesity has long been studied, but one piece of research offers new perspectives on how and why eating late can significantly affect our health. The study published in Cell Metabolism (I link it here) analyzes three key aspects: the calorie metabolism, hunger level , body fat management.
A new look at metabolism and obesity
Obesity, which today afflicts hundreds of millions of people around the world, represents one of the most pressing health challenges of our time. The research in question, conducted by the neuroscientist Frank Scheer of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, delves into the complex biological dynamics that link meal times to the risk of obesity.
The study, sketched as early as 2018 and then resumed, involved 16 participants with a body mass index (BMI) in the overweight or obese range. In a six-day controlled experiment, researchers observed how changing meal times affected various physiological aspects. In particular, they noticed eating later in the day reduces levels of the hormone leptin, responsible for the feeling of satiety, and slows down the rate of calorie burning.
Impact of the “small hours” on hunger and fat
The results showed that by eating later, participants felt hungrier and burned calories at a slower rate. Above all, the mechanism that favors the phenomenon has emerged.
Which? Adipose tissue gene expression shows an increase in the process of adipogenesis, which builds fat tissue, and a decrease in lipolysis, which instead breaks it down. These observations suggest that eating late not simply leads to “slower digestion”, but transforms the body by causing it to accumulate more fat more quickly, and to dispose of this fat less and more slowly. A disastrous domino effect, in other words.
Eating late at night "hijacks" our body
Scheer highlights the importance of considering other behavioral and environmental factors that might influence these biological pathways underlying obesity risk. Research published in Cell Metabolism isolates the effects of meal timing by controlling for variables such as calorie intake, physical activity, sleep and light exposure. In real life, however, many of these aspects could in turn be influenced by the time at which meals are consumed. Things, in other words, could be even worse.
Looking to the future, the research team intends to deepen the study by including a greater number of women and analyzing how variations in sleep times in relation to meal times can influence these processes. With this research, we hope to outline even more effective strategies to combat obesity, a problem that not only compromises individual health but also public health on a global level.
