Scientists in America said late-night meals may pose a risk to heart health. Findings from a new study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions annual meeting, found that eating more later in the evening was associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
The study was presented at the AHA’s 2018 scientific session taking place in Chicago from November 10 to 12. Cardiovascular disease generally refers to conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. Other heart conditions, such as those that affect the heart’s muscle, valves or rhythm, also are considered forms of heart disease. According to a Postdoctoral Fellow in Cardiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and lead author of the study, Nour Makarem, people in the United States (US) now have a ‘delayed lifestyle’ — they go to sleep later at night and get fewer hours of sleep. With such delayed lifestyle, higher rates of latenight eating abound, she said. Makarem and her col-leagues thought that this meal timing may play a role in the rise in rates of obesity, high blood pressure (HBP) and diabetes seen in recent years. It is not only in the US that late night eating is seen.
The practice is also common not only in urban centres in Nigeria, but also in rural far-to-reach Nigeria where community people savour eating late at night. Using the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos database, the researchers look at information on more than 12,700 Hispanic and Latino adults ages 18 to 76, and found that over half of the people in the study consumed 30 per cent or more of their daily calories after 6 p.m.
Those participants had higher levels of fasting blood sugar (a measure of the amount of sugar in the blood when someone hasn’t eaten in hours), higher levels of insulin (the hormone that regulates the amount of sugar in the blood), higher levels of HOMA-IR (a marker of resistance to insulin) and higher blood pressure than participants who reported eating less than 30 per cent of their daily calories after 6 p.m. A high fasting blood sugar level can be considered a sign of prediabetes, meaning that a person’s blood sugar levels are abnormally high, but not high enough to be considered diabetes. The researchers found that those who consumed 30 per cent or more of their daily calories after 6 p.m. were 19 per cent more likely to develop pre-diabetes than those who ate more earlier in the day.
Similarly, 70 per cent of people with pre-diabetes go on to develop type 2 diabetes, which is a risk factor for heart disease, Makarem noted. Diabetes is a disorder where the body does not produce insulin or does not use it efficiently and can lead to dangerous complications.
