Shift workers are less likely to develop cardiovascular complications if they only eat in the daytime, latest research has suggested.
Researchers from Mass General Brigham have found that eating during the night can increase an individual’s risk of developing heart problems.
According to the findings, the time people eat could be a bigger risk factor than the time people sleep.
First author Professor Frank A.J.L. Scheer said: “Our prior research has shown that circadian misalignment — the mistiming of our behavioural cycle relative to our internal body clock — increases cardiovascular risk factors.
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“We wanted to understand what can be done to lower this risk, and our new research suggests food timing could be that target.”
A total of 20 young adults took part in the two-week inpatient study. To ensure their body clocks would not tune into time, each participant had no access to watches, windows or electronics during the trial.
Researchers then determined the impact of circadian misalignment by analysing how body functions altered from before to after simulated night work.
Throughout one part of the experiment, participants stayed awake for 32 hours in a dimly lit environment and had to remain in the same body posture and consume identical snacks every hour.
They then had to complete simulated night work and were randomly assigned to either eat during the nighttime or only during the daytime. All the participants followed the same sleep schedule.
The cardiovascular risk factors being assessed by the researchers included autonomic nervous system markers, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 and blood pressure.
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These cardiovascular risk factors only increased among the participants who ate during the day and night, the results have reported.
The risk factors remained the same among those who only ate in the daytime, emphasising the importance of when people eat rather than what they eat.
Fellow author Dr Sarah Chellappa said: “Our study controlled for every factor that you could imagine that could affect the results, so we can say that it’s the food timing effect that is driving these changes in the cardiovascular risk factors.”
Read the study in the journal Nature Communications.
