According to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, the time of day that patients with diabetes eat specific foods may be just as crucial to their well-being as portion size and calories.
Mealtimes should follow the biological clock, which is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and repeats every 24 hours. Diabetes patients’ health results may improve if particular foods are consumed at different times of the day.
“We found that eating potatoes in the morning, whole grains in the afternoon, greens and milk in the evening, and less processed meat in the evening was connected with greater long-term survival among diabetics,” stated Qingrao Song, M.D., of Harbin Medical University in Harbin, China. “In the future, nutritional guidelines and diabetes intervention programs should include ideal food consumption timings.”
According to study, eating starchy vegetables like potatoes early in the day may assist persons with diabetes. According to study findings, those with diabetes who timed their food consumption were less likely to develop heart disease. The best results were associated with consuming carbs for breakfast, whole grains for lunch, and greens for dinner.
The findings show that nutrient timing could assist persons with diabetes in matching their meals to natural biological rhythms of insulin sensitivity in order to prolong their longevity. In the future, nutritional guidelines and diabetes intervention techniques should incorporate the best consumption timings for foods.
Dr. Qingrao Son
The researchers examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey on 4,642 diabetics to evaluate their risk of dying from heart disease. They discovered that diabetics who ate potatoes or starchy vegetables in the morning, whole grains in the afternoon, and dark vegetables like greens and broccoli, as well as milk, in the evening, were less likely to die from heart disease. Those who ate a lot of processed meat in the evening had a higher risk of dying from heart disease.
Participants who ate carbohydrate-rich vegetables like potatoes earlier in the day were less likely to die of heart disease, according to the study. The same was true for individuals who ate whole grains in the afternoon and dark, green veggies at night. Consuming a lot of processed meat in the evening, on the other hand, has been related to an increased risk of dying from heart disease, according to studies.
According to the researchers’ data modeling, transferring even a tenth of a serving to a more suitable meal time was associated with a considerable risk decrease, for example, swapping a portion of potatoes from supper to breakfast or whole grains from breakfast to lunch.
The findings show that nutrient timing could assist persons with diabetes in matching their meals to natural biological rhythms of insulin sensitivity in order to prolong their longevity. “In the future, nutritional guidelines and diabetes intervention techniques should incorporate the best consumption timings for foods,” stated Dr. Qingrao Son, co-author of the study and researcher at Harbin Medical University, in a press release.
Meal time may be important whether or not you have diabetes. Skipping breakfast isn’t necessarily a deal breaker for a healthy diet, but it is linked to more fluctuating blood sugar levels and possible drops in performance at work, school, and the gym, according to experts.
Eating more early in the day and less late at night is also associated with a healthy weight, probably because it prevents late-night snacking on calorie-dense, less nutritious foods like chips, alcohol, and the like. While more research is needed on meal time, studies suggest that what you eat overall may be more significant than when you eat.
The participants were monitored for almost two years, during which time 307 of them died from heart disease, according to the researchers. According to the CDC, around 30 million individuals in the United States have Type 2 diabetes, which is caused by the body’s inability to digest sugars in food and raises a person’s risk for heart disease.
According to the findings of this study, the time of day that people with Type 2 diabetes eat particular meals may be just as crucial to their health as portion size and calories, according to the Chinese researchers. Meal timings should be consistent with the biological clock, which is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and repeats every 24 hours, according to the researchers.
