Calories At Night Make You Fatter

When it comes to controlling your weight, some experts insist that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. But a laboratory study at the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania shows that calories consumed at night are more dangerous for your waistline.

The research, performed on animals, shows that when we eat food at a time when we should be resting (in the evening), it disrupts our internal clock and results in the creation of extra fat cells. These changes in metabolism, the researchers say, are the reasons night shift workers have an increased prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome, and people with sleep disorders have a higher risk for developing obesity. In general, if you don’t get enough sleep, it tends to drive your weight up.

“Our findings show that short-term changes have an immediate effect on the rhythms of eating. Over time, these changes lead to an increase in body weight,” says researcher Garret FitzGerald, M.D.