The Body Clock Cancer Connection

Did You Know It’s Not Just What We Eat but When We Eat That Can Have a Big Impact on Our Health?

- Natalia Lubomirski

Long summer days may be putting our health in jeopardy – and not for the reasons we may think. Never mind the dehydration or the risk of sunburn, it’s the warm weather and light summer evenings that encourage many of us to eat later, which could be causing problems. The immediate effects might be indigestion, but the long-term consequences could be much worse…

The concept of ‘we are what we eat’ has been drilled into us. But while tucking into oily fish, fresh vegetables and complex carbs is important for our body’s wellbeing, researchers have now revealed it’s not just what we eat, but when we eat that can have health repercussions.

Researchers at the Barcelona Institute of Global Health have discovered that going to bed on a full stomach, or eating after 10 pm, increases the risk of breast and prostate cancer.

The study, which included prostate and breast cancer patients as well as randomly selected individuals, looked at meal timings, sleep habits and chronotypes (a fancy term for whether someone is a ‘night owl’ or ‘early bird’).