Open AccessThe Elapsed Time between Dinner and the Midpoint of Sleep Is Associated with Adiposity in Young Women
Author(s) -
María Fernanda Zerón-Rugerio,
Giovana LongoSilva,
Álvaro Hernáez,
Ana OrtegaRegules,
Trinitat Cambras,
Marı́a Izquierdo-Pulido
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
nutrients
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.418
H-Index - 115
ISSN - 2072-6643
DOI - 10.3390/nu12020410
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , waist , meal , obesity , medicine , sleep (system call) , circadian rhythm , demography , biology , computer science , paleontology , sociology , operating system
Meal timing relative to sleep/wake schedules is relevant in the search for obesity risk factors. However, clock time does not accurately characterize the timing of food intake in the context of internal circadian timing. Therefore, we studied elapsed between dinner and the midpoint of sleep (TDM) as a practical approach to evaluate meal timing relative to internal timing, and its implications on obesity. To do so, adiposity, sleep, diet, physical activity, and TDM were measured in 133 women. The participants were grouped into four categories according to their sleep timing behavior (early-bed/early-rise; early-bed/late-rise; late-bed/early-rise; late-bed/late-rise). Differences among the categories were tested using ANOVA, while restricted cubic splines were calculated to study the association between TDM and adiposity. Our results show that, although participants had dinner at about the same time, those that had the shortest TDM (early-bed/early-rise group) were found to have significantly higher BMI and waist circumference values (2.3 kg/m 2 and 5.2 cm) than the other groups. In addition, a TDM of 6 h was associated with the lowest values of adiposity. The TDM could be a practical approach to personalizing meal timing based on individual sleep/wake schedules. Thus, according to our findings, dining 6 h before the midpoint of sleep is an important finding and could be vital for future nutritional recommendations and for obesity prevention and treatment.