New Delhi:
Delaying your meal time may be directly proportional to delaying your one of the body clocks warn researchers. Researchers concluded the findings from the study to find a potential way to alleviate the symptoms of jet lag and shift work.
The human body runs on a 24-hour cycle basis. The master clock in the brain and peripheral clocks in other parts of body control the 24-hour cycle. External clues, inlcluding light synchronise peripheral clocks in other parts of the body.
According to the findings, if we delayed our meals for five hours then our internal blood sugar rhythms were also delayed by five hours. The findings implied that meal times synchronised internal clocks that in turn controlled the rhythms of blood sugar concentration.
"It has been that regular jet lag and shift work have adverse effects on the body, including metabolic disturbances," told lead investigator Jonathan Johnston from the University of Surrey.
At least one of those clocks can also be reset, based on the time a person eats his breakfast, lunch and dinner, according to the study.
"Altering meal times can reset the body clocks regulating sugar metabolism in a drug free way. This will help us design feeding regimes to reduce the risk of developing health problems such as obesity and cardiovascular disease in people with disturbed circadian rhythms," Johnston added.
For the study ten healthy men were enrolled. It was a 13-day experimentwhere the participants were made to eat after three meals at 5-hour intervals.
Each participant started with a meal time set to 30 minutes after waking, and then when they werew all used to eating early, they were then made to take meal five hours later for six days.
Surprisingly, there was no imapct on the insulin or triglyceride (fat) levels in the blood with delay in meal times which indicated that blood glucose rhythms can ber governed by separate circadian clocks to these other key aspects of rhythmic metabolism, according to the researchers.
