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Meal timing, specifically for dinner, may either increase or decrease people’s risk of having certain types of cancer, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Cancer.
Researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health observed over 1,800 patients with prostate or breast cancer and 2,193 people without cancer. The researchers interviewed the participants and gave them questionnaires about their dinner time, sleeping patterns, and other health-related factors. All of the participants were from Spain.
The results of the study suggest that eating dinner early lowers the risk of breast cancer or prostate cancer by 20%. On the other hand, eating dinner after 10 p.m. or less than two hours before going to bed makes people more prone to these types of cancer.
Previous studies have looked into the connection between the nutritional value of food and cancer risk, but only a few have focused on the effects of meal timing on cancer. According to the study’s lead researcher, the results emphasize the importance of considering body clock when studying diet and cancer. The results can also affect the current recommendations that doctors give for cancer prevention.
Although the study has groundbreaking findings, some medical practitioners were not fully convinced of its validity. For instance, a dietitian from California thinks that self-reported data from interviews and questionnaires are unreliable because they are susceptible to error. She also emphasized that culture makes the participants’ eating patterns and routines different from the rest of the world. This is because practices like eating late and sleeping in the middle of the day are common in Spain.