Chrononutrition: “When you eat is as important as what you eat” | Health and wellness

The way you eat is key to health and illness. But not only what and how much we eat, but also when. In recent years, science has focused on unraveling the phenomenon of chrononutrition, which explains the relationship between temporal eating patterns, circadian rhythms, and metabolic health. And some research has already highlighted the importance for the body of good timing of eating with our circadian rhythm, the 24-hour biological clock that regulates internal bodily functions. Scientists have found that skipping breakfast is associated, for example, with a higher risk of obesity, and eating late is also associated with weight gain.

Humans have a sort of central clock that sets the time for the body. At first glance, it’s a barely one-millimeter ball located in the hypothalamus, but these tiny molecular devices are able to tell the time to the rest of the body and, along with tiny tissue-independent chronometers, they anticipate and prepare. cells of what is to come, such as eating at noon or sleeping at night. “Our body has a timetable and this central clock is not isolated, but it synchronizes with the outside, mainly through light and darkness, but also with the changes between eating and fasting or activity and rest moments” explains Marta Geroullet, Professor of Physiology at the University of Murcia and Specialist in Chrononutrition.

Respecting the circadian rhythm and all the biological changes that follow a 24-hour cycle is essential to health. Disruption of this biological rhythm can change basic vital functions, the scientist points out: “We are diurnal animals, we are made to sleep at night and we do not eat when we sleep. We are made to eat and move around during the day. So, if your body perceives that there is light at night or that you are eating, it is receiving conflicting information.

Through the central clock, peripheral chronometers (which are in organs and tissues), lifestyle habits, behavior and environment, internal biorhythms are regulated. “A person who is well with their chronobiology is someone who has all their clocks aligned and synchronized with the changes of light and dark,” explains Garolet. Now, there may be synchronization failures in the central clock, peripherals or behaviors; And that in the long run, scientists say, can create chronodospressions, “which are related to diseases like obesity, cancer, depression or metabolic changes. This is clearly seen in shift workers or night workers, who are examples of people whose behavior is misaligned with their internal clock.”

Lunchtime, a synchronizer

The eating moment, like light, is a clear modulator of internal clocks, Geraulet says. “Meal timing is a synchronizer of the peripheral clocks of food-related organs such as the liver and pancreas. If you eat at the wrong time, all the organs preparing to receive food will not react well: because receiving food is a powerful effect for the body and it needs to be prepared,” says the expert, who goes into more detail about this. .Explanation: “Looks like they’re coming. 100 people come to your house for dinner and they don’t inform you. Anticipation that food is going to enter the body helps it respond well, and when it doesn’t, metabolic levels change.

The body is programmed in a way and the organs function accordingly. That is, differently during the 24 hours of the day: they don’t respond the same if they have to work at times they didn’t plan. The pancreas, for example, is lazy at night and more active during the day. “Eating dinner late has a very clear effect: it coincides with the secretion of melatonin, the hormone that prepares you for sleep, with insulin, the hormone that helps distribute food. But, in the presence of melatonin, insulin secretion is reduced and tolerance to sugar and carbohydrates worsens,” says the chronobiologist. She and her team discovered a decade ago that eating late when you’re on a diet influences your ability to lose weight. can

Researcher Lidia DeMille of the Madrid Institute of Advanced Studies (IMDEA Food) and the Obesity and Nutrition Network Research Center (Ciberobn) emphasizes that “the body is not equally prepared at any time of the day to manage food” . So, while what you eat is a crucial factor in a person’s chronobiology, he explains: “When you eat is as important as what you eat. If what you eat is good and healthy, but the timing isn’t right, you’re not getting the benefits that those foods could bring you in the same intensity.”

Quality sleep and fasting

In practice, the impact on health can be global. “Once the timing is set, it can affect everything,” sums up Garolet. An editorial in Frontiers of nutrition Compiled, a few months ago, that chronodosproactive dietary behaviors “have been implicated in many health disorders, including sleep disorders, cardiometabolic risk, imbalanced energy dynamics, body temperature imbalances, weight gain, and psychosocial discomfort.”

Another scientific review recalled in 2020 that “experimental and clinical studies have consistently shown that changes in circadian rhythms can favor the development and progression of digestive pathologies, such as irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases.” Similarly, the journal published research on mice in 2023 Science pointed out that synchronizing food with the circadian clock reduces obesity: animals that eat during the active phase of their circadian cycle burn more calories and reduce the risk of developing this disease.

Disruption of natural mealtimes also affects sleep. “Sleep is an external synchronizer, like mealtime, and it sets your clocks; But, at the same time, it’s also a result of your internal clock and it can be altered, like eating late, which can alter sleep because you’re not digesting properly,” adds Garoulet.

In the context of chrononutrition, the figure of fasting and its influence on modulating internal clocks also makes its way. “Time-restricted eating, which means that the number of hours of eating is reduced, is being studied. “What we do know is that when the fast is done early, it works better than if we take it to the afternoon and delay breakfast,” explains DeMille. The scientist maintains that fasting helps the body “reset.” is and “helps initiate epigenetic mechanisms that help regulate nutrient metabolism.”

But there are many uncertainties to be resolved, he clarifies, and the scientific community is not clear, for example, “whether fasting (limiting serving time) is better than calorie restriction (reducing the number of calories consumed).” Additionally, he adds, there are so many different fasting protocols, “it’s not known which one is best because it’s unknown how each one influences circadian rhythms.”

There are no magic recipes

Scientists warn that there are no magic recipes or infallible recommendations about the right time to eat. Garoulet assures that there are more than 300 identified genes that define each person’s tendency to be more morning or evening: “There are people who, if they eat dinner at 12 at night, because their biological night starts at 1 in the morning Well, it doesn’t affect him. “Everyone has different biological nights and the time they eat will affect them based on their internal chronotype.” For this reason, DeMille asserts that “it is very difficult to give global advice. But there are two general messages: don’t eat late and don’t eat dinner too close to bedtime,” says DeMille.

Chrononutrition, however, is an expanding science and there are still issues to be resolved. For example, Garoulet points out: “It is not clear that there are no studies that confirm that changing the hours of consumption improves the prognosis of obesity.” Damiel, for his part, points to another major mystery to be solved: “There is a lot of knowledge about how circadian rhythms are regulated, but the challenge now is to learn to modulate this according to our metabolic convenience. The task is to see how, through nutrition, the clocks are aligned: what dietary protocols can be applied to set our clocks.”

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