To Prevent Cancer, Eat Dinner Before 9
The hours of eating and sleeping are related to our ability to metabolize food well and prevent diseases such as cancer.
Many people can not eat when they want, but when work and family obligations leave them, but, if you can choose, have dinner before 9 or wait at least two hours before going to bed.
It is advice with all the scientific endorsement of a study carried out by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and published in the International Journal of Cancer . If you follow it, you will reduce your risk of breast or prostate cancer by 20%.
There are relationships between daytime or nighttime habits and cancer
The ISGlobal research is the first to link meal and sleep times with the risk of suffering from the two most common types of cancer worldwide and in which the most correlation has been found with the alteration of the circadian biological rhythm (se has proven that people with night shift are more at risk of developing them).
The study consisted in the analysis of the eating habits, sleep and chronotype –if it is more or less daytime or nocturnal– of people with breast and prostate cancer from different parts of Spain.
Eat during the day
The director of the research, Manolis Kogevinas, concludes that “following daytime eating patterns is associated with less risk of cancer.” Everything indicates that the reason is that bedtime affects our ability to properly metabolize food.
The analysis of the data shows that people who separate dinner at least two hours from bed are the most benefited, with a 20% reduction in the risk of cancer. And the risk is even lower in people who follow dietary recommendations to prevent cancer (such as eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables) and in those with daytime habits who get a good night’s rest.
A similar advantage was found in people who dined before 9. Those who ate dinner only an hour later no longer got protection.
Recommendations to prevent cancer should take into account schedules
The authors of the research consider that, in addition to recommendations on the type of foods that prevent cancer or promote it, citizens should also be offered guidance on schedules.
The study’s finding is more relevant to southern European regions, where it is customary to dine later than in the center or north of the continent.
The importance of an overnight fast
The study points out that, in the evolutionary history of mankind, the norm has been for ingestions to occur intermittently during the day and a long fast to be experienced at night. Previous research has shown how prolonged overnight fasting prevents inflammation, spike in glucose levels, or even the development of tumors.
