Eating Late at Night Could Cause Heart Attack, Diabetesse

Scientists have said that eating during the night is associated with higher risk of heart disease and diabetes and the body’s 24-hour cycle is to blame. These are the findings of a new study published in the journal ‘Experimental Physiology’.
Eating at night is a common phenomenon among rural and urban settlers and based on poor eating habit acquired over the years, dumping the practice for many has become an uphill task.
Previous studies tend to show that when food is consumed late at night — anywhere from after dinner to outside a person’s typical sleep/wake cycle — the body is more likely to store those calories as fat and gain weight rather than burn it as energy, said Kelly Allison of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s Center for Weight and Eating Disorders.

However, in the new study, researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico looked at levels of fat, called triglycerides, in the rats’ blood and found that after feeding the rats fat at the beginning of their rest period, their blood fat levels spiked more drastically than when fed during the beginning of their active phase. When they removed the part of the rat’s brain that controls the 24-hour cycle, there was no longer a change in fat levels.High blood fat levels are associated with heart disease and diabetes and these diseases are associated with a lifestyle where humans ignore the signals of the biological clock, and eat in the evening and night.The new study demonstrates why such a lifestyle that’s out of tune with human’s 24- hour cycle may result in high blood fat levels and thus in a higher risk for heart problems, the ‘science daily’ reported.Ruud Buijs is professor of neurobiology and senior research scientist at Biomedicas Institute at the UNAM University in Mexico. He said: “The fact that we can ignore our biological clock is important for survival; we can decide to sleep during the day when we are extremely tired or we run away from danger at night.