The danger of late dinners has been identified: it is better not to eat after 9 pm

Eating late may seem harmless, but sitting down to dinner after 9pm can increase your risk of having a stroke or mini-stroke, writes the Daily Mail.

The study involved more than 100,000 people in France, each of whom completed up to 15 food diaries with meal times on weekdays and weekends.

A third of people who ate their dinner early did so before 8pm, while a third who ate late at night did so after 9pm.

The volunteers were followed for an average of seven years, during which time nearly 2,000 cases of cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes, were recorded.

People who ate dinner late, after 9pm, were 28% more likely to have a stroke or transient ischemic attack, often known as a “mini-stroke”. These data were compared to people who ate dinner before 8 p.m.

Researchers say we’ve evolved to eat earlier in the day, and some evidence from animal studies suggests that digesting food later raises blood sugar and blood pressure, reports the Daily Mail.

High blood pressure in the evening, when it is usually lower, can damage blood vessels over time and increase the risk of blood clots, which lead to strokes and heart attacks, although much more research is needed and meal timing is unlikely to affect health as much. like unhealthy eating.

Dr Bernard Srour, senior author of the study from Sorbonne Paris-Nord University, said: “Like many people, my grandmother used to warn me not to eat dinner too late, and this study suggests there may be some merit to that advice. Now we Living in a 24/7 society where people feel like they never have enough time, many of us often eat late at night, but people who eat dinner late because they think they’re too busy to do it earlier may increase their risk health problems, although this is more common in women, and we need more research to confirm these findings.”

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, looked at when people ate breakfast and dinner and their risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular diseases included cerebrovascular diseases – strokes and mini-strokes, which affect blood flow to the brain.

It also included coronary artery disease such as heart attacks, stable angina and people requiring angioplasty procedures for blocked and narrowed arteries.

People who ate dinner after 9 pm, compared with people who ate dinner before 8 pm, did not have a higher risk of developing coronary heart disease.

But the study shows that for every hour later someone eats dinner, the likelihood of having a stroke or mini-stroke increases by eight percent.

For every hour later than someone ate breakfast, the risk of all types of cardiovascular disease increased by six percent.

The link between meal timing and heart problems was observed primarily in women, who made up nearly 80 percent of the study volunteers.

The only result that was significant for men was that every hour after breakfast was associated with an 11% increased risk of coronary heart disease – but this may have been due to the fact that there were too few men in the study to obtain a statistically significant significant results.

The study found more evidence, consistent with previous studies, that a longer period of fasting at night could be beneficial to health, writes the Daily Mail.

Each additional hour of fasting overnight was associated with a seven percent reduction in the risk of stroke or mini-stroke.

However, this appears to have been driven by people having an early dinner and fasting longer before breakfast, rather than the strategy of eating late and having a late breakfast the next day.