For many years, people who eat late at night have been wracked with guilt – it’s bad for your health, isn’t it? Not necessarily true, according to a new Japanese study.
A common belief held by many around the world is that you should avoid eating a meal just before bedtime at night.
In Japan, it has actually been publicly recommended that people leave at least a two-hour gap before sleep after eating their last meal of the day.
But now, new research conducted in the same country suggests that this could be nothing but a rumour, and that it doesn’t really matter if you eat right before sleeping.
The common belief is that having a meal just before bedtime increases your risk of getting illnesses related to high blood glucose levels, such as diabetes and heart disease.
But since there was no evidence for this, Japanese researchers decided to conduct their own study, in which they looked at health data from 1,573 middle-aged adults who had no previous glucose-related conditions.
Adults in Japan over the age of 40 were asked about their lifestyle habits and their glucose levels were checked. The individuals’ data sets were compared over three years: in 2012, 2013 and 2014.
The research found that over the course of these three years, it made no significant difference to blood glucose levels if the person said they waited for two hours after eating before going to bed, or if they said they did not stick to the two-hour gap.
Instead, the findings showed that other factors such as weight, blood pressure, physical activity levels or smoking habits mattered a lot more than eating before bedtime.
“More attention should be paid to healthy portions and food components, getting adequate sleep and avoiding smoking, alcohol consumption, and overweight, as these variables had a more profound influence on the metabolic process,” the researchers concluded.
So if you’ve been feeling guilty about eating before bed – don’t. Instead, focus on making sure you have a healthy and balanced lifestyle overall. – dpa
