That Late-night Snack: Worse Than You Think

[ALS]

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2009) — Eat less, exercise more. Now there is new evidence to support adding another "must" to the weight-loss mantra: eat at the right time of day.

A Northwestern University study has found that eating at irregular times -- the equivalent of the middle of the night for humans, when the body wants to sleep -- influences weight gain. The regulation of energy by the body's circadian rhythms may play a significant role. The study is the first causal evidence linking meal timing and increased weight gain.

"How or why a person gains weight is very complicated, but it clearly is not just calories in and calories out," said Fred Turek, professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Center

for Sleep and Circadian Biology. "We think some factors are under circadian control. Better timing of meals, which would require a change in behavior, could be a critical element in slowing the ever-increasing incidence of obesity."

The findings could have implications for developing strategies to combat obesity in humans, as the United States and the world battle what has been called an "obesity epidemic." More than 300 million adults worldwide are obese, including more than a third of American adults.

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[ehidle]

Yet another kook who thinks that the laws of thermodynamics somehow do not apply to the human body...

It is all about calories in vs. calories out. The rules are simple.

Ingest more energy than you expend, the excess gets stored. Expend more energy than you ingest, and the deficit is taken out of stores.