Eat less to live longer, dinner and longevity? American study: Hungry at night may prolong life

What happens to people who don't eat at night?

Some people say that as long as you don't eat at night, you can lose weight, and the effect is very good, and some people say that skipping dinner will hurt the stomach. There is also a saying that "the less you eat, the longer you live", so if you don't eat at night, you can also prolong your life.

It seems that each of these claims has some truth to it. But what are the facts?

For many people who lose weight, skipping dinner is the best way to lose weight. But there are also people who think that skipping dinner makes you feel sick all night, and eating more the next day hurts your stomach. Is the evening diet more effective or worse?

In order to clear everyone's doubts, the research team of Southern Medical University recruited 139 volunteers in Guangzhou. The BMI of these volunteers was between 28 and 45, which restored the BMI of most people as much as possible.

The researchers randomly divided the volunteers into two groups. Group A was the group that did not eat dinner and was only allowed to eat between 8:00 and 16:00 ; Group B was the group that could eat at any time, but should eat as little as possible. Evenly eat less group.

After a whole year of observation, it was found that skipping dinner and calorie control would really make them thinner . They all lost 10% of their body weight, about 9 kilograms. However, comparing the two groups, the group that did not eat dinner and the group that ate less evenly did not have much difference in weight loss .

And more importantly, in the study, regardless of group A or group B, the intake was required to be reduced by 25% of the usual amount . And if you eat 100% of your meal at dinner time, you won't lose weight even if you skip lunch. So the key is to eat less.

Some people did lose weight just by skipping dinner. why?

It's true that skipping dinner will make you lose weight, but it's not necessarily fat that loses weight. Because people's body weight is controlled by water in addition to fat, and most of the weight lost by not eating dinner is water. Water can fluctuate greatly in the human body in a short time, for example, through sweating and urination, water is excreted, but fat has no direct excretion channel, and it is often difficult to eliminate.

Moreover, skipping dinner may be more likely to rebound.

The body's energy metabolism has a set of formulas, energy metabolism = human body is alive + energy consumption of activities + other.

When you skip dinner, other substances in the body will indeed be consumed in a short period of time, but as soon as you eat dinner or start to recover from dinner, the body will intelligently make up for the previous consumption, and then the weight will be restored again.

If you don't eat dinner for a long time, the body will launch a more violent energy decomposition action, decompose the protein in the body, reduce the muscle, and accumulate the energy into fat because of the less consumption.

Going without dinner for a long time can also have a negative effect on the stomach . The gastric acid secreted by the stomach may corrode the gastric mucosa, stimulate the stomach, and increase the risk of chronic gastritis and gastric ulcer in the long run.

Second, eat less to live longer? not eating at night or prolong life

The key to losing weight is not to eat dinner or not, but to control calories, and many studies on dietary restrictions have found that eating less is often associated with better health, longer lifespan, and far more than that. From an immune perspective, caloric restriction can suppress inflammation and affect the activation process of macrophages, thereby contributing to prolonging lifespan.

In September 2021, published in Nature, the team of Mimi Shirasu-Hiza from Columbia University in the United States used fruit flies to conduct intermittent eating experiments. The researchers found that only fasting for 20 hours, and only in the evening or around lunch. The lifespan of the fasted flies increased , while the flies that were fasted during the day and only fed at night did not have a change in lifespan.

So, can we fast because of this?

First of all, there are two misunderstandings here. The first is to make it clear that eating less is not blind fasting . Eating less is to reduce the total calories of food while ensuring a nutritionally balanced diet. Blind dieting, on the contrary, will affect gastrointestinal function, and it is also prone to malnutrition, resulting in decreased resistance and mental state.

The second is to understand that fasting has certain risks . For some special groups, such as children and adolescents, pregnant, lactating, malnourished, underweight, eating disorders, diabetics, chronic diseases, etc., It is not suitable for blind fasting, and it may bring greater risks to the body.

Light fasting is not suitable for everyone. The most important thing is to weigh the pros and cons based on your own physical condition, and then make a decision. It should be carried out under the guidance of professionals, and do not try it at will.

3. How did you eat dinner?

Not only do you have to eat dinner, but you have to know how to eat it. If you don’t eat dinner, it is easy to rebound. If you eat the wrong dinner, you will easily gain weight. So when eating dinner, pay attention to these aspects:

1. The best time for dinner

Dinner is best done 4 hours before going to bed . If bedtime is at 22:00, then dinner time should be around 18:00, and should not exceed 20:00 at the latest.

It takes at least 3 hours to digest food. Eating too late and going to bed immediately is not conducive to the digestion of the stomach and may also affect sleep.

2. The best portion for dinner

Li Nannan, director of the Hunan Provincial Popular Science Writers Association, suggested that dinner should be eaten less , and the energy provided by dinner should account for 30%-40% of the total energy of the whole day, so it is enough to eat 7 minutes of dinner.

3. Don't touch 5 at dinner time

Dinner should be as light as possible, and avoid foods that are too heavy and difficult to digest.

Including fried foods such as fried chicken and fried meat , high-fat and high-cholesterol foods such as animal offal , high-calorie foods such as desserts and cakes , crude fiber foods such as leeks and large amounts of whole grains , and irritating foods such as coffee and strong tea etc. _

Losing weight is not something that can be changed only by diet, but by changing your living habits, eating well, having regular meals, and increasing exercise. This weight loss effect is sustainable.

References:

[1] Liu, Deying et al. “Calorie Restriction with or without Time-Restricted Eating in Weight Loss.” The New England journal of medicine vol. 386,16 (2022): 1495-1504. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2114833

[2] "If you want to live longer, you really have to keep your mouth shut and reduce your calorie intake by 14%! ". Academic latitude and longitude. 2022-08-17

[3] "Xiehe Expert: The weight loss method of not eating dinner is very harmful. A reasonable dinner has "four elements" and "five inappropriate". Eat three meals a day. 2021-04-03

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