Best time to eat for better health, study reveals

Reducing calorie intake and avoiding late-night eating can benefit your health but the timing of meals throughout the day is also an important factor. This is according to a new medical study conducted in the United States.

Researchers at the UT Southwestern Medical Center found that eating at specific times of the day may help maintain better health as people age. The study was conducted on mice which were fed according to scheduled meal times.

According to the researchers, eating in alignment with the body’s biological (circadian) clock has positive effects on health as people grow older. The study noted that although the average human lifespan has increased significantly over the past century, most people still spend more than 10% of their lives dealing with various illnesses.

Age-related chronic diseases are a major reason for this decline in health. The researchers found that reducing calorie intake lowered the risk of developing chronic conditions such as cancer, heart disease and cognitive decline in middle and old age by up to 50%.

They also found that eating earlier in the day instead of late at night reduced the risk of various diseases by up to 35% while improving overall health over time. The study involved 528 healthy mice. During the first eight weeks of their lives, they were allowed to eat as much food as they wanted whenever they wished.

After eight weeks, the mice were divided into two groups. One group continued with unrestricted eating while the other group received all of its daily food within a 2- to 12-hour eating window.

The researchers then monitored the mice throughout their entire lives and evaluated their overall health. The results showed that mice that consumed all of their food within an 8-hour window lived 12% longer than the other groups.

In addition, mice following a time-restricted eating schedule showed significantly better overall health with a lower risk of obesity and chronic diseases. The study also found that consuming all daily meals within a 12-hour window led to noticeable improvements in long-term health.

The researchers suggested that for humans consuming all daily meals within 12 hours after breakfast may be an ideal eating pattern although they emphasized that further human studies are needed to confirm these findings. The study’s findings were published in the journal Nature Aging.