Virtually all western cultures
are presently fighting an obesity epidemic, as processed convenience foods
dominate total calories consumed. Homemade meals that include fresh vegetables,
fruits and lean protein sources have become a rare event over the past half
century, placing the health of millions at risk. Most people are aware that the
total number of calories eaten and physical activity play an important role in
weight management, but new research is beginning to demonstrate that the timing
of meals and types of foods consumed may help prompt weight
loss as much as the actual calories eaten.
Meal Timing is a Critical and Independent Factor that can Help Promote Weight
Loss
A research team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has found that meal timing is a critical factor necessary to shed
pounds. Publishing in the International Journal of Obesity,
scientists reveal
that it's not simply what you eat, but also when you eat, that may help with
weight-loss regulation. Study author Dr. Frank Sheer noted “This is the first large-scale prospective
study to demonstrate that the timing of meals predicts weight-loss
effectiveness.”
To conduct the study and determine the
importance of food timing with respect to weight loss, researchers studied 420 overweight
participants from Spain who followed a 20-week weight-loss treatment program.
The participants were divided into two groups (early-eaters, main meal before 3
PM and late-eaters, main meal after 3 PM) based on the self-selected timing of
the main meal, which was lunch in this cohort of Mediterranean volunteers.
Participants consumed forty percent of their daily calories at lunchtime,
widely considered to be the main meal in Spain.
Eat Breakfast
Every Day and Avoid Between Meal and Late Night Snacking
The team found that late-eaters
lost significantly less weight than early-eaters, and displayed a much slower
rate of weight-loss. Late-eaters also had a lower estimated insulin
sensitivity, placing them at significantly higher risk for diabetes. Dr. Sheer concluded “This is the first large-scale prospective
study to demonstrate that the timing of meals predicts weight-loss
effectiveness… novel therapeutic strategies should incorporate not only the
caloric intake and macronutrient distribution, as it is classically done, but
also the timing of food.”
Interestingly, the researchers found that
late-eaters losing the least amount of weight also consumed fewer calories
during breakfast and were more likely to skip the first daily meal altogether,
supporting previous studies concluding the importance of eating a high protein
breakfast to stimulate weight loss. Scientists also accounted for other
traditional factors that play a role in weight loss such as total calorie
intake and expenditure, the appetite hormones leptin and ghrelin, and sleep
duration, and found no differences between the two groups, indicating that meal
timing is a critical and independent risk factor for weight loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment