MOSCOW, January 12, Tatyana Pichugina The later the breakfast, the higher the risk of cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes, scientists have found. How meal times affect health and what chrononutrition is – in the material .
Time to lose weight
The intensity of energy processes in the body depends on the time of day – this is called circadian rhythms. Linking a meal schedule with them is quite logical. In the mid-1980s, a special term even emerged – chrononutrition.
In 2009, the first book on chrononutrition was published, edited by Japanese scientists. “The importance of eating regularly for health is recognized in both the West and the East. Even in ancient Japanese literature, the importance of breakfast was pointed out,” emphasizes one of the authors, Hiroaka Oda from Nagoya University.
It is common knowledge that people who work at night are more likely to suffer from heart disease and obesity. There is evidence that they have a higher risk of cancer. With the help of chrononutrition, scientists hope to solve the problems of excess weight and type 2 diabetes, which are extremely common in developed countries of the world. In general, a paradoxical situation has developed in Japan. People watch their diet, reduce calories, maintain physical activity, and the proportion of the population with metabolic disorders is growing. Perhaps it’s not just about what we eat, but also at what time.
Not eating breakfast is a bad idea
Diabetes mellitus occurs due to a failure in glucose metabolism. There is a direct connection with circadian rhythms: glucose is better absorbed in the morning and afternoon. Late breakfasts and dinners, common in the modern world, disrupt circadian rhythms and increase blood glucose levels. In addition to diabetes, this contributes to the development of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal diseases. Smoking, stress, fast pace of life aggravate the situation.
People with an evening chronotype are at risk – night owls. According to the authors of the review “Chrononutrition in the management of diabetes”, those who eat dinner late are more likely to skip breakfast, and this increases the likelihood of type 2 diabetes by 21 percent. A late dinner disrupts circadian rhythms, and a person does not receive a hunger signal in the morning.
For a long time, they could not formulate a cause-and-effect relationship between skipping breakfast, the duration of overnight fasting and metabolism. Recently published work based on data from the French study NutriNet-Santé (more than 103 thousand questionnaires) clarified these issues.
As scientists from Spain found, from 2009 to 2021, 963 respondents developed diabetes. And there are many more “owls” among them. Those who ate snacks or kept a night fast for at least 13 hours fell ill less often.
Late breakfast increases the likelihood of cardiovascular diseases – French experts concluded after analyzing the same questionnaires. Almost two thousand diagnoses. Moreover, every hour of delay has an impact, and dinner after nine in the evening increases the risk by 28 percent. A longer eating window, that is, fasting between dinner and breakfast, on the contrary, is beneficial.
In rhythm with the body
“Internal clocks and circadian rhythms regulate numerous physiological and biological processes in the body, including hormonal balance, sleep, body temperature and mental activity,” explains nutritionist Maria Menshikova from Teledoctor24.
These rhythms, in turn, are determined by melatonin (the sleep hormone), which is produced by the pineal gland of the brain, adds biohacking expert Galina Khusainova. The Nobel Prize was awarded in 2017 for the discovery of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms.
“In Tibetan medicine, these mechanisms have long been known. Each internal organ is subject to its own schedule. Within 24 hours, phases of activity and passivity alternate, which is used in treatment methods and taking medications at certain times. Following circadian medicine, a healthy person wakes up at five to six in the morning “to have breakfast at seven, when the cascade of work of the entire gastrointestinal tract starts. The digestive process ends with detoxification in the liver from one to three in the morning (subject to deep sleep) and cleansing of the rectum at five in the morning,” lists Khusainova.
According to her, significant contributions to the study of nutritional circadian rhythms were made by Satchin Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute. He experimentally showed that a 12-hour food break heals the body.
The main rule is to avoid eating late in the evening, Menshikova believes. This allows you to reduce the time allotted for nutrition.
“For example, if you have breakfast at seven in the morning and dinner at eight in the evening, the goal is to reduce this period from 13 to 11 or 10 hours,” the doctor says.
It is important to follow a meal schedule. For breakfast, the optimal interval is from 6:30 to 9:30 am, the rest can be adjusted. You can't just have dinner too late. In total, three or four approaches to the table per day.
However, Menshikova warns, “fast food and semi-finished products are harmful even with the strictest adherence to the daily regimen.” The diet should be well-balanced.
“Regularity of eating at certain hours promotes efficient use of energy and helps maintain optimal weight. Intermittent fasting also improves insulin sensitivity and metabolic parameters,” notes nutritionist Olga Ilyicheva, head of the scientific department of the Moscow Institute of Informatics.< br />Much work has been published on the relationship between eating timing and cardiovascular health, such as a meta-analysis from China. There are Russian articles on this topic. A regular eating pattern improves sleep quality and reduces the risk of psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.
“It is important to have breakfast within the first hour of waking up. Having an early lunch, around 12:00, promotes a more efficient metabolism. To cope with a fall cortisol, which usually occurs during the day at three to four o’clock, you can eat around 2. An early dinner around six in the evening makes it easier to digest food,” says Ilyicheva.
Even if there is no appetite in the morning, for example, due to stress, you need to have breakfast, preferably with your favorite foods, the expert adds. However, before changing anything in your diet, you need to consult with your doctor and nutritionist.
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