Earlier dinner times could be way to healthier life: Study

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The time you eat – and the timeframe in which you eat – could be the very thing that keeps your weight in check.

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Harvard Medical School researchers at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that the earlier a person eats is the better option.

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Additionally, eating all your meals within a 10-hour window is optimal.

The research, published in Cell Metabolism, found that our hunger and appetite, energy levels and how the body stores fat is affected by the time of day in which a person eats.

“We wanted to test the mechanisms that may explain why late eating increases obesity risk,” senior author Frank Scheer, HMS professor of medicine and director of the Medical Chronobiology Program in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, explained to the Harvard Gazette.

“Previous research by us and others had shown that late eating is associated with increased obesity risk, increased body fat, and impaired weight loss success,” senior author Frank Scheer, HMS professor of medicine and director of the Medical Chronobiology Program in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, said. “We wanted to understand why.”

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Researcher and first author Nina Vujovic added, “In this study, we asked does the time that we eat matter when everything else is kept consistent.”

Sixteen participants, who were considered overweight or obese based on the body mass index, ate the exact same meals on two different schedules: one earlier in the day and the second about four hours later in the day.

So, for example, if one person ate at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., someone in the other group would eat at 1 p.m., 5 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The findings showed that late eating increased hunger, decreased energy expenditure, burned calories at a slower rate and altered the adipose tissue gene expression, which promotes fat growth – all of which combined may increase a risk in obesity.

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“We found that eating four hours later makes a significant difference for our hunger levels, the way we burn calories after we eat, and the way we store fat,” said Vujovic.

The results were consistent with other studies but Scheer explained that their research shows how and why eating later might increase a risk in obesity.

“This study shows the impact of late versus early eating,” Scheer explained. “Here, we isolated these effects by controlling for confounding variables like caloric intake, physical activity, sleep, and light exposure, but in real life, many of these factors may themselves be influenced by meal timing.”