New Delhi: We all know that eating late at night is bad for health. Now, a new study has added another dimension to these concerns.
Researchers from Oregon Health & Science University have found that late-night eating can directly affect liver health.
The study, published in the Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology journal on 10 October, underlines a direct correlation between late-night eating and an increased risk of two types of liver diseases: metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease and cirrhosis.
This is the first research that links eating habits directly to liver disease.
“A few studies have hinted at this idea, but this is among the first long-term analyses to explicitly draw the connection to fatty liver disease,” said lead author Robert Wilechansky, MD, a hepatologist specialising in liver transplantation.
The research examined night shift employees, linking the misalignment of their body’s natural day-night cycle to obesity and heart disease. The research is based on the case study of almost 2 lakh participants. The eating behaviours of these participants were monitored and their relation to fatty liver disease and cirrhosis was determined.
It was “found to have a 20 per cent to 30 per cent increase in all forms of liver disease among the group of people who reported late-night eating compared to those who did not,” the report said.
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Timing matters
The research also revealed the relation of the body clock to overall health. One of the researchers underscored the importance of sleep, eating and exercise timings in determining overall health.
“We are seeing over and over again that the timing of behaviors, whether it’s sleep, eating or exercise, really matters,” said co-author Andrew McHill, associate professor and sleep and circadian physiologist.
McHill further illustrated his point. “For example, we have shown that eating during the night, when the internal biological clock is promoting sleep, reduces the ability of your body to metabolize foods as efficiently and can eventually lead to obesity, diabetes, and now poor liver health.”
In earlier research among animals, the liver was found as one of the most “suspectible” organs to “misalignment in timing between eating and sleep.”
“Our findings add to the growing body of literature linking late-evening eating patterns to adverse metabolic and liver outcomes,” the authors write.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)