Heart Risks' Linkage to Inconsistent Mealtime, Revealed by Study

Keeping yourself busy in the middle of a pandemic can be a good way to fight against boredom, depression, and other mental health issues. However, keeping yourself busy can take most of your time and sometimes make you forget eating, which is essential for people. A recent study showing inconsistent mealtime connection to heart risks might make you remember your mealtime or even put an alarm for it.

Considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal, an associate research scientist from Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and lead researcher Nour Makarem said in the release by American Heart Association (AHA) that the new research is looking at the impact of changes in meal timing from day-to-day and weekday-to-weekend. She added that the changes are connected to several important heart health risk factors alongside changes in blood pressure, glucose in the blood, body fat, and waist circumference.

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Methods and result of the study 

Presented in the American Heart Association's Virtual Scientific Sessions conference, Makarem and her co-authors analyzed 116 women aging from 20-64 years old, which were a part of AHA's study. The release further said that the participants utilized an electronic food diary in tracking what and when they will be eating for a week. The release notes that the idea people shift their sleep patterns on the weekend is coined as social jet lag. 

In the study, the researchers focused on the day-to-day shifts of people in eating timing, duration of the eating period, evening eating, and eating jet lag, which pertains to the eating schedule differences on weekdays and weekends. The release also connotes that the researchers also observed the timing of the participants' first and last meal of the day and how long they have fast overnight; and what percentage of daily calories were they able to consume or ingest after 5 PM and 8 PM.

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The release further said that the researchers were able to notice for every 10% increase in the irregularity in calories consumed after 5 PM, participants have an increase of nearly 3 points in their systolic blood pressure and about two points in their diastolic blood pressure based on the study's one year follow up period. The researcher also found that increased variability in calories eaten after 8 pm is connected to more than a half-inch increase in waist size and a half-point upsurge in body mass index. 

In the release, Makarem said that the results don't mean that worse eating time is expressed on weekends. Still, on weekdays, the social clock is followed, while on weekends, individuals are following their natural biologic clock.

Experts views

In an interview with the American Heart Association, Harvard Medical School professor of Medicine, Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH, who is not part of the study, said that it could be hard to single out the detailed linkage between meal timing, heart health, and sleep. He also added that it is because nothing travels in isolation. He stressed that these three factors travel in packs where if somebody is staying up late, and eating late at night, most likely they will not be having a good night's sleep, which can also cause weight gain.

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