Careful! Late-Night Eating Can Harm Your Heart

CAIRO, Nov. 19 (SEE) – Late night eating isn’t not only recommended for keeping your weight suitable, but now it’s known to be harmful to your heart.

A recent study presented recently at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions annual meeting, found that late-night meals was associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

The study lead author Nour Makarem, a postdoctoral fellow in cardiology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons explained that many people now tend to have a "delayed lifestyle". “They go to sleep later at night and get fewer hours of sleep, and with that delayed lifestyle, you also see higher rates of late-night eating,” she added in a report published by ‘livescience.com’.

Makarem and her colleagues thought that this meal timing may play a role in the rise in rates of obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes seen in recent years.

In their study, the researchers used a database for more than 12,700 adults ages 18 to 76.

In the study, the participants reported their eating habits, and those habits were later on compared with measurements such as blood pressure and blood sugar.

They research team found that over half of the people in the study consumed 30 percent 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 percent of their daily calories after 6 p.m.

Those same participants were also 23 percent more likely to develop hypertension, compared with people who ate more earlier the day. These associations were especially common in women, Makarem added.