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Do you often indulge in something tasty late at night before bed and then feel guilty about it? You don’t have to anymore!
Scientists have questioned what has been said for years
You’ve surely heard many times that we should eat no later than two hours before we go to sleep. But is it just a myth, or does it really have some adverse effect on our body?
New research has produced a surprising finding
Apparently there are no tangible benefits to having your last meal two hours before sleep. Eating in the late evening is not as bad as previously thought!
Eating dinner two hours before sleep was recommended by experts so that blood sugar levels could stabilize. However, Japanese scientists revealed that this gap between eating and sleeping did not actually change long-term blood sugar levels.
Experts from Okayama University
The experts followed 1 573 healthy adults for three years. They observed their diet and sleep and regularly performed blood tests on them. Most participants had at least a two-hour gap between dinner and sleep. The remaining 16% of men and 8% of women had a shorter interval.
Conclusion
When the researchers analyzed the blood results, they concluded that it doesn’t matter when before sleep a person ate. Much greater influences on blood sugar levels were weight, blood pressure, exercise, smoking and alcohol consumption.
“Greater attention should be paid to healthy foods overall, sufficient sleep, and we should also avoid smoking, alcohol consumption and being overweight, because these variables had a deeper impact on the metabolic process,” the scientists told the journal BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health.
