Eating In The Evening Contributes To Diabetes? Eating Late Is Always Bad!

Recently, the pharmaceutical shills and misinformation “health” platform Medical News Today published an article based on a study investigating the impact on eating large meals in the evening and the connection to increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Although I have covered this subject many times, let’s see where they are going with this, what they tell us, and what they do not.

“As the holidays approach and the epic meals begin, a study recently published in Nutrition & Diabetes suggests that most of us should avoid the temptation to eat heavily later in the day.”

It should be common sense that you should not eat any majority of your meals later in the day considering digestion and the body’s prioritization of allocating resources — you do not want digestion interfering with sleep and thus the detoxification and healing processes.

“The study, conducted by teams from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain, and from Columbia University, NY, suggests that eating more than 45% of daily calorie intake after 5 p.m. may be linked to poorer glucose tolerance, particularly in older adults with prediabetes or early type 2 diabetes.”

Well, we’ll examine these claims later in the article. Still, as said, you should never eat close to bedtime as digestion takes priority over detoxification and healing. And when you sleep, detoxification and healing is usually prioritized and boosted. However, that can only happen in a fasted state and not while you’re still digesting food. So, by eating late, especially larger meals that take a long time to digest, you inhibit your body’s ability to detoxify, heal, and recover. And that in turn means that your toxic load continues to grow while damaged tissue remains unhealed, a recipe for declining health and most “modern diseases.”

“This can significantly harm health over time, leading to a greater risk of type 2 diabetes development, greater cardiovascular risk, and chronic inflammation.”

Indeed. And to be precise, “chronic inflammation” is simply ongoing detoxification and/or healing, as the body can’t really keep up with the damage you do through poor diet, eating habits, and toxic exposure, and that is especially true if you eat in the evening or close to your bedtime as detoxification and healing will be hampered most of the night.

And of course, when you sleep, digestion is slowed down as your body tries to initiate and increase other processes vital to sleep and recovery. However, as digestion is prioritized and shuts down detoxification and healing, all processes struggle and none of them will run optimally until you enter a fasted state. That means that it will take longer for the body to neutralize an eventual excess of blood glucose and/or triglycerides, toxins, and other compounds, which in turn will cause damage to soft tissues and the cardiovascular system.

“The previously assumed consequence of late eating was primarily weight gain due to a slower metabolism as we wind down and our bodies prepare for and engage in sleep.”

This only goes to show how uneducated and stupid these “researchers” are. The impact digestion has on detoxification and healing has been well-documented in biology and physiology for a very long time — and so has the body’s shift in functions during a fasted state, prioritizing detoxification and healing, which should occur naturally during sleep (unless you stuff yourself prior to sleep.)

“The new study suggests that, regardless of a person’s weight or general caloric intake, the time of day when they eat can have significant consequences on glucose metabolism.”

While this can be true, you still do not mention the big elephant in the room, the real problem of shutting down your body’s natural detoxification and healing system.

“The study classified 26 participants between the ages of 50 and 75 — who had overweight or obesity, as well as prediabetes or type 2 diabetes — into two groups: “early eaters” who consumed most of their daily calories before 5 p.m., and “late eaters” who ate 45% or more of their calories after 5 p.m. for 14 days.”

14 days is a very short period of time to collect any meaningful data. And that indicates that they were totally uninterested in observing tissue damage, toxic load, hormonal fluctuations, and so on, and only looked at blood markers such as glucose levels.

“The groups ate a comparable amount of daily calories and macronutrients. However, late eaters consumed almost double the number of calories after 5 p.m., consuming more fat and carbohydrates overall and trending toward higher protein and sugar intake than early eaters.”

Can we please stop using the pseudo-scientific juvenile word “calories.” It makes me cringe every time as it illustrates a complete lack of understanding of human physiology, it makes you look like a stupid little wannabe who got his or her diploma from a box of cereals.

Also, being a study, the two groups should have had the exact same meals, simply served at different times. Still, let’s go with it.

“In oral glucose tolerance tests, the late eaters had notably higher blood glucose levels after 30 and 60 minutes, indicating a lower tolerance of glucose (sugar).

This trend was maintained regardless of participants’ body weight and fat mass, calorie intake, and diet composition.”

First, while glucose is sugar, you need to explain that it all comes from carbohydrates, no matter the type of carbohydrate, as all of them will be broken down to glucose in the body and enter the bloodstream elevating blood glucose above our safe and natural levels — thus inflicting damage.

And now to explain, what the researchers actually found was that blood glucose concentrations increased more over time (as the day went on) after each meal in the ‘late eaters group,’ compared to the ‘early eaters group.’ Also, the largest differences were seen in glucose concentrations during 30 and 60 minutes after a meal.

This means that consuming meals later in the day as the body is preparing to wind down and sleep, and you naturally begin to move less, burning less blood glucose, these blood glucose levels remain elevated for longer periods of time (doing more damage) and in these individuals, it also seemed like the body took longer to combat the unnatural rise of blood glucose from consuming carbohydrates, as blood glucose levels increased significantly after a meal compared to the other group.

Why is eating late bad for your health?

I’ve already explained this, and in-depth in previous articles. But let’s see what they say.

“Nate Wood, MD, an instructor of medicine and the director of culinary medicine at the Yale School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study, explained to Medical News Today that eating later in the day or into the night does have the capacity to add weight to the body due to the simple fact that most people are much less active at night, and not active at all as they sleep.

The issue with eating late at night, we think, is that we are consuming calories at a time when our body doesn’t need them, Wood told us.”

That is a very simplistic and dumbed-down conclusion — and again with the calories.
No, the issue is that your body is preparing for sleep, detoxification, healing, and recovery, and by eating you interfere with these processes.

And if you have not eaten enough earlier in the day, your body will need these nutrients to maintain homeostasis, however, the timing is wrong. You should have had that meal earlier in the day. That is all.

“Pouya Shafipour, MD, a board-certified family and obesity medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, who was not involved in the study, explained that the body is much more insulin-resistant at night, due to circadian rhythms.

During the day, there is more insulin secretion and increased pancreatic activity, he explained.

When the receptors at the back of the retina sense that light is going down, melatonin starts getting secreted from the pituitary gland, and then that suppresses the pancreas, Shafipour said, adding that eating late can be very harmful in the long and short term.”

Insulin resistance is a man-made construct. When looking at diabetes it’s simply accumulated damage to cells due to repeatedly elevating blood glucose by consuming carbohydrates and plant-based unsaturated fats. The cells can no longer store glucose as glycogen or they would die, so they shut down the insulin receptor in order to survive the bad dietary habits of the individual. As for perceived insulin resistance later in the day, this has to do with several factors, all of them easily identified using common sense.

First and foremost, most people tend to be less active as the day goes on. That means less use of glucose for physical activity, meaning that elevated glucose levels will take longer to neutralize than earlier in the day when the person moved around more.

And again, the body is winding down towards the evening, changing priorities as the night approaches, which means that although digestion takes priority all other processes are on the opposite spectrum, so absorption, conversion, and utilization of nutrients, including blood glucose, takes longer.

This is why some people who are active in the evening can get away with eating late, as they actively use some of that blood glucose as fuel, while it’s a pure disaster for other less active people.

What is the ideal meal to eat later in the day?

The same as any other meal during the day. Animal-based foods. High fat, moderate protein, and absolutely no carbohydrates or plant-based food ever. And of course, no meal later than 4 to 6 hours before bedtime to make sure you’re in a fasted state when you fall asleep.

“It is probably not the most popular answer during the holidays, but dinner should ultimately be the lightest meal you eat, Shafipour advised.

This means fewer carbohydrates — so avoiding pasta, mashed potatoes, rice — and indulging less in dessert and alcohol.”

Why the frikkin’ heck do you mention alcohol as if it is a food item or even a macronutrient? That is not the first time Medical News Today has categorized alcohol as something natural to one’s diet. That is total insanity. Alcohol is a poison and no sane person should ever consume it.
While I can excuse deceived and dumbed-down people who consume plant-based garbage or even processed foods due to their sheer ignorance and lack of knowledge and understanding of human physiology, every single person knows that alcohol is bad, that it damages your body. So, why the heck would you ever consume it? Willingly damaging yourself?! Again, total insanity.

Anyway, yes, avoid carbohydrates. Actually, you should never consume carbohydrates as they will raise blood glucose above normal levels which means a lot of damage to all your soft tissues.

“Because of insulin resistance, he added, there is a daytime window where those larger-carbohydrate meals can work with your metabolism.

The most active time in terms of metabolism is plus and minus an hour between probably about 10 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m.,” Shafipour said.”

No, you should not consume carbohydrates at all. Recommending anyone to do so makes you a criminal as you deceive people into damaging themselves — especially if they’re not physically active.

How does sleep affect glucose metabolism?

“The balance between sleep and eating is important to strike for metabolism and overall health. Because sleep is so important, Wood said that a consistent pattern each night was the most important factor. 

Most adults need 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. Getting less than that or more than that can have negative effects on our health, Wood pointed out.”

Yes, but why do you not explain the detoxification and healing cycle and processes of the body, or how important it is to be in a fasted state when sleeping? Probably because none of you want people to be healthy, as that would cut into your profits and it does not fit your agenda of a weak, docile and dependent population.

“I recommend patients try to go to bed at the same time every night. This means that if you go to bed at 10 p.m. on weeknights, try to go to bed no later than 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. on weekends. The more consistent we can keep our sleep schedule, the better, he advised.”

Only non-thinking people stay up later on weekends because of some weird idea they got when they were younger and foolish. It’s common sense that you should go to sleep at about the same time every single day. And you should go to bed before 10:00 p.m., preferably around 9:00 p.m. as that will optimize your detoxification, healing, and especially your very important growth hormone release. I’ve covered this and the science behind it many times.

“Sleep is also by itself very important, because we have the hormone leptin, which is an appetite suppressing hormone, get secreted, and it peaks around 6 or 6 and a half hours of sleep. So optimal sleep schedule would be for an average adult would be between 7 to 8 hours so you get enough leptin and ghrelin, which is the appetite hormone that one also doesn’t stay up too much during the day. So if we sleep less than 6 and a half hours, we’ll notice that we’re hungrier during the day looking for food more.”

Uhm, no. That is not how it works. It works on a sliding scale. You use a lot less energy when sleeping, so the more sleep you get, the less “energy” you need to consume. So, if you sleep very little and are up moving about, you’ll need to eat more, and you’ll also need more nutrients. That is why you might feel a bit hungrier if you slept less.

And that was it for MNT’s article on this subject. Not much useful information at all, and they cleverly kept their readers in the dark by avoiding the real issues with eating late. Still, it was one of the better articles they’ve published in a long while, as the core message of “eating late is bad” is at least true.
And this also ties in with the fact that we are made for a “time restricted eating” pattern, as in intermittent fasting. However, most people do it wrong, as you should start eating early in the day, and stop eating in the afternoon, fasting until the next day and utilize sleep to its maximum by being in a fully fasted state.

If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.

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