If you read certain newspapers - which I will not name - you could be fooled into believing that pretty much everything gives you cancer. Somewhere online, there is a list of things that the news claim will give you cancer.
Whether it be dogs or grass, bacon or exercise, there are a wide variety of things that these places claim could lead to you getting the life-threatening disease and, if you followed everything they said, you would more than likely die for malnutrition and lack of sunlight.
However, of course, there are certain things that you should avoid in order to reduce your chances of getting various types of cancer. Tobacco, direct sunlight and alcohol are all things to avoid, but have you ever considered changing dinner time in order to protect yourself from cancer? Probably not. But, according to new research, you definitely should.
A new study that was published in the International Journal of Cancer found some interesting links between the time you eat your dinner in the evening and your overall risk of developing certain types of cancer, including breast and prostate - two of the largest killers of both men and women.
“Modern life involves mistimed sleeping and eating patterns that in experimental studies are associated with adverse health effects,” the researchers explain. “We assessed whether timing of meals is associated with breast and prostate cancer risk taking into account lifestyle and chronotype, a characteristic correlating with preference for morning or evening activity.”
The research predominantly looked at how long before bedtime a person eats their last meal of the day. They found that individuals who ate before 9 pm or at least a few hours before bed dramatically lowered their risk of developing cancer later in life. When compared to those who eat their dinner after 10 pm, it was discovered that the early eaters enjoy a 20 percent drop in cancer risk.
The research was conducted across thousands of individuals and they tracked their daily nighttime and eating habits to determine whether they had an influence on their likelihood of developing cancer in the long term. The conclusion was that early dinners seem to be a very beneficial thing if you’re hoping to avoid some of the more common types of cancer, but the scientists still don’t know exactly why this is the case.
At the moment, they are stating that circadian rhythm, which refers to the patterns of daily activity and sleep that humans have established over hundreds of thousands of years, is playing a role, though they can’t say exactly how.
So, if you're a late eater, it may be time to change those habits. However, like all things of this nature, it's important to take this research with a pinch of salt. As stated previously, there's a ton of different things that get linked to cancer and eating a late dinner is just the latest one.