Effects of consuming later evening meal versus earlier evening meal on weight loss during a Weight Loss Diet
Previous data have associated a relationship between timings of meals and weight loss in humans. Madjd and colleagues (2020) published a study titled, “Effects of consuming later evening meal versus earlier evening meal on weight loss during a Weight Loss Diet: a randomized clinical trial” in “The British Journal of Nutrition”. The summary of this study is given below:
Objective:
To investigate the effect of late and early evening meal consumption on weight reduction and cardio-metabolic risk factors in women during a weight loss program.
Method:
Participant includes 82 Healthy women between the age of 18-45 years and BMI 27-35 kg/m². The randomly assigned into two hypocaloric weight loss groups: Early Evening Meal (EEM) Group with meal timings of 7:00-7:30 PM, or Late Evening Meal (LEM) Group with mealtime of 10:30-11:00 PM, for 12 weeks. Anthropometric parameters were measured at the baseline and after 12 weeks. Blood samples were collected and cardiovascular risk factors were compared between the EEM and LEM groups using unpaired t-tests.
Findings:
The study reports higher weight loss, lower serum triglyceride, and more improved insulin sensitivity in the EEM group than in the LEM group. The hypothesized explanation put forward by the investigators for less weight loss in LEM is that the late eating pattern might influence circadian genes (SIRT1 and CLOCK loci) resulting in weight gain or less ability to lose weight. improved cardiovascular risk factors were found in both the groups which could be explained by weight loss and reduced waist circumference (WC). Hence, in dietary recommendations for weight loss, advice on appropriate meal timings for the evening should be included.
Limitations:
It was a free-living study; hence, diet compliance could not be tracked and there was reliability on self-report for key outcomes such as food intake. It was a short-term intervention including premenopausal women with overweight or obese. Authors acknowledge future studies with a broader range of participants and also studies involving physical activity with time intervals in between.
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