Let me begin by saying that what I’m about to discuss is primarily of importance to those with existing metabolic and/or blood sugar control issues. The basic concepts do apply to healthy people, but they don’t really significantly impact one’s health unless you’re already struggling with blood sugar control.

It’s pretty common knowledge that what we eat has an impact on our blood sugar in the moment, and when poor diet is maintained for a long period of time, the body’s ability to manage sugar can become seriously disrupted.

A recent study suggests that when we eat can have a significant impact on metabolic health as well.

Dieters have often been told to avoid eating late at night, as this will slow weight loss. Well, there’s changes in body function that occur at night that make it susceptible to poor blood sugar control as well.

Just for clarity as to what we’re talking about regarding “night,” the study in question was using 7:00 PM as the transition into nighttime.

The overall finding was that eating at night resulted in a greater impairment in one’s ability to manage blood sugar. As mentioned above, we’re mainly concerned here with those who are already having blood sugar control issues, although healthy people have somewhat decreased blood sugar control when eating late as well.

This is overall due to what’s called the diurnal cycle – different organs and glands function somewhat differently at different times of the day and they run on a more or less set schedule.

In the case of nighttime eating and its effects on decreased blood sugar control, there’s multiple things going on at once.

First, insulin resistance increases significantly at night. Insulin resistance is how much the cells respond to insulin to take up glucose (blood sugar) to use it as fuel or store it for energy later. The greater your insulin resistance, the longer glucose from a meal stays in your blood stream. This causes the pancreas to overwork try to produce more insulin, and over time, this impairs the health of the organ so it can no longer produce what is needed.

Another thing that occurs at night is the liver releases glucose as a means of maintaining reasonably steady blood sugar when you’re going for hours without eating. So if you eat at night, you have extra blood sugar from the liver on top of that coming from what you eat.

In addition, at night, the pancreas produces less insulin (again, in normal circumstances, this helps to keep blood sugar stable when you’re asleep and not eating for several hours).

People with impaired metabolic function also tend to clear insulin faster than normal, so that further worsens the effect of the pancreas decreasing production at night.

To sum things up, at night insulin resistance increases, glucose entering the bloodstream increases (from both food eaten late and the liver), and there’s less insulin available (due to decreased production and increased clearance). In someone who is already metabolically challenged (people with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, etc.) these nighttime effects can significantly add to their health challenges.

While avoiding eating late probably won’t correct metabolic issues all by itself, shifting the last time you eat for the day to 6:00 PM or earlier could ease some of the problems that those with poor blood sugar control face. It’s a relatively simple change that I think is worth considering.

Until next time…

George F. Best, D.C.