Do you stay up till late for work? Study says when you eat matters more than when you sleep

Researchers and health experts have always stressed on how working in night hours affects one's cardiovascular health. Several studies have concluded about how staying up late affects the biological functioning of an individual most importantly the heart.


Recently, a group of researchers have found a strategy that can cut down the risk of heart diseases in night shift workers. The findings of the study have been published in Nature Communications.


"... daytime eating, despite mistimed sleep, may mitigate changes in cardiovascular risk factors and offer translational evidence for developing a behavioral strategy to help minimize the adverse changes in cardiovascular risk factors in individuals exposed to circadian misalignment, such as shift workers," the researchers have said.


For the study, the scientists examined 20 healthy participants. The participants had no access to windows, watches or electronics. "Study participants followed a “constant routine protocol,” a controlled laboratory setup that can tease apart the effects of circadian rhythms from those of the environment and behaviors (e.g., sleep/wake, light/dark patterns). During this protocol, participants stayed awake for 32 hours in a dimly lit environment, maintaining constant body posture and eating identical snacks every hour. After that, they participated in simulated night work and were assigned to either eating during the nighttime (as most night workers do) or only during the daytime. Finally, participants followed another constant routine protocol to test the aftereffects of the simulated night work. Importantly, both groups had an identical schedule of naps, and, thus, any differences between the groups were not due to differences in sleep schedule," Mass General Brigham has said in its report.

The scientists have concluded that avoiding eating during night hours can benefit those who work till late in the night. This can also benefit those who experience insomnia or sleep-wake disorders, those with variable sleep/wake cycles, and people who travel frequently across time zones.