Midnight snacks are not generally suggested for maintaining the waistline, but recent research has come up with another compelling reason not to snack in the middle of the night…it might be bad for your brain.
Apparently snacking late at night might be adversely affecting our memory thanks to how it affects the hippocampus. The research for this study was done on mice not people, but the researchers think the results could translate to us as well.
To test this out the researchers allowed some mice to continue eating at night which was their normal habit, and then made sure that other ones could only eat during the day. They were given specific six hour periods when they were allowed to eat and kept in cages with wire grids that would shock them if they tried to eat outside of the time periods. The researchers then monitored them to see if they would remember the shocks or change their behavior.
What they found was that the mice who were digesting food when they were normally asleep were more likely to forget that they had been shocked and show reasonable fear to the possibility occurring again. The researchers feel like this could have something to do with the fact that these mad had less of a protein called CREB which the body uses to form memories and keep its internal clock on schedule.
The researchers said:
“We have provided the first evidence that taking regular meals at the wrong time of day has far-reaching effects for learning and memory. Since many people find themselves working or playing during times when they’d normally be asleep, it is important to know that this could dull some of the functions of the brain.”
This particular study has not been replicated on humans however so it is unknown if we would have the same response. It has been proven though that eating at different times of day can raise our blood sugar levels when it doesn’t need it which can cause different disruptions in the body.
According to professor Christopher Colwell from UCLA:
“Modern schedules can lead us to eat around the clock so it is important to understand how the timing of food can impact cogitation. For the first time, we have shown that simply adjusting the time when food is made available alters the molecular clock in the hippocampus and can alter the cognitive performance of mice.”
It’s definitely something to keep in mind if you find yourself waking up at odd hours and heading to the gym. If you do wake up with legitimate hunger in the night try having a small protein rich snack before bed. Even a protein shake will do. Some research has shown that men who had a protein snack before bed woke up with a higher resting energy expenditure than men who had a placebo before bed.
Just make sure to avoid anything that contains sugar otherwise you risk keeping yourself up which is the opposite of the restful sleep we’re going for.
That is weird I’d like to hear more about this
Why though would the brain care when we ate