Researchers at Northwestern Medicine have found out why late night eating makes you gain weight and makes you more likely to get diabetes.
Although the relationship between late night eating habits, sleep, and obesity is well established, it is still not fully understood. Research has shown that eating too many calories can change fat tissue and throw off your body’s natural clock.
For the first time, a recent study from Northwestern University suggests that energy release may be the chemical process by which our internal clocks regulate energy balance. With this knowledge, the researchers discovered that heat is best able to evaporate during the day in the light environment created by the Earth’s rotation. These discoveries are important for a lot of things, like how we feed people who need long-term nutritional support and how we deal with dieting and insomnia.
Time-restricted eating reduces obesity through adipocyte thermogenesis is the title of a study that will appear online today and in print in the journal Science on October 21.
According to Dr. Joseph T. Bass, the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and corresponding study author, “It is generally established, albeit poorly understood, that insults to the body clock are likely to be insults to metabolism.” He practices endocrinology at Northwestern Medicine as well.
The clock is messed up when animals eat Western-style cafeteria diets that are heavy in fat and carbs, according to Bass. “High-fat diets disturb the clock’s sensitivity, which is sensitive to when people eat, particularly in fat tissue. Although scientists still don’t know why, we do know that when animals gain weight, they tend to eat more when they ought to be sleeping. This study demonstrates why it’s important.
Bass is the chief of endocrinology in the Feinberg Department of Medicine as well as the director of the Center for Diabetes and Metabolism. The theory was first proposed by Chelsea Hepler, a postdoctoral fellow in the Bass Lab, who also carried out many of the biochemistry and genetics tests that supported it. A significant associate was Rana Gupta, who is currently attending Duke University.
Scrambling the internal clock
Mice were fed a high-fat diet either just during their inactive (light) time or throughout their active (dark) period for the duration of the study. Mice are nocturnal. Mice fed during the daytime gained more weight than those fed during the night within a week. To lessen the impact of temperature on their findings, the scientists also set the temperature to 30 degrees, where mice consume the least energy.
We reasoned that mice might be using more energy when they eat at particular times as part of the energy balance, Hepler said. According to this, they can eat the same amount of food at various times of the day and be healthier when they eat while they are active rather than when they should be sleeping.
The team investigated adipose tissue metabolism to see if the increased energy expenditure had any impact on the endocrine system. They discovered that late night eating did, and mice with genetically increased thermogenesis—the release of heat through adipose tissue—prevented weight gain and had better health.
Hepler also discovered unsuccessful creatine cycling in fat tissues, which suggests that creatine may be the mechanism underpinning heat release. This cycle involves the storage and release of chemical energy from the energy-supporting component creatine.
Gastric feeding tubes and sporadic fasting
Studies done at Northwestern University more than 20 years ago by Bass and his colleagues back up the science. They found a link between an animal’s body weight, obesity, metabolism, and the internal molecular clock.
Figuring out what it all means and identifying the regulatory mechanisms that cause the association has been difficult for Bass’s team, which focuses on employing genetic techniques to research physiology. They are closer now thanks to this study.
According to Bass, the results may influence chronic treatment, particularly when patients are using stomach feeding tubes. Patients are frequently fed while they are sleeping at night because this is when they are discharging the least amount of energy. Bass believes that this may be the reason why these people have high rates of diabetes and obesity. He also worries about how the discovery might affect the management of Type II diabetes. Should mealtimes be taken into account while administering insulin, for instance?
Hepler will keep looking into creatine metabolism. In order to increase creatine metabolism, she said, “we need to understand how the circadian clock regulates it mechanistically.” We don’t yet know how much clocks affect metabolic health at the level of fat tissue.
