A new study shows that eating late is even worse for health and weight than we thought

Do you usually have dinner very late? If you are worried about your diet and your health in general, it is time to change your habits.

It has long been known that eating too late makes you fat. That is, you gain more weight than if you eat dinner first thing at night. But, what is the difference between having dinner at 10 or doing it at 12?

It seems strange that the same food is more or less fattening depending on the time we consume it. Numerous studies have proven that eating too late leads to weight gain. Even if you eat the exact same thing.

This is because the Cardiac rhtyms that our body follows, adjusting to the cycles of day and night in which they are divided 24 hours a day, influence the molecular and psychological mechanisms that make us gain more or less weight.

We already knew, therefore, that eating very late is bad for the diet. But, what is the difference between having dinner at 9 or 12 at night, for example? That is what a new study carried out in the United States has confirmed, which comes to us via IFL Science.

Eating dinner too late makes you fat

For 12 days, 16 people were literally locked up in a lab. They didn’t come out to see that they did the same activities every day, and that they ate exactly the same food at the indicated times.

For 6 days, they dined 6 hours and 40 minutes before going to sleep. For another 6, just 2 and a half hours before going to sleep. In the laboratory they carried out all kinds of measurements at the molecular level.

The researchers found that eating late increased feelings of hunger the next day, and that despite having dinner four hours later.

Also increased the proportion of “hunger” hormones in the blooddespite following the same diet. In addition, it was found that fewer calories burned the next day.

In participants who underwent fat tissue biopsy, have dinner very late caused molecular changes promote fat storage.

In summary, all these changes indicate the same thing: if it is maintained over time, late dinner makes you fat, even consuming the same food. The study authors recommend eat dinner a minimum of 4 hours before going to sleep. And if possible, fast-forward to 6 and a half hours before. Something almost impossible in Spain, where it is customary to have dinner very late.