You may have read that light coming into your eyes sets the body’s clock. Similarly, food changes the clocks in tissues in your liver, muscles, and fat. Human beings developed to eat only during daylight, which lasted 12 hours. That meant we didn’t eat for 12 hours a day. Sticking to that plan may help you stay healthier as well as thinner. However, it’s a surprisingly bad idea to ignore breakfast, eat lunch or dinner late, eat a big bedtime snack, or eat in the middle of the night.
In a study with 776 participants, people who ignored breakfast were 80 percent more likely to have obesity (肥胖症). People who ate lunch after 12:30 (or dinner after 21:00) were 60 percent more likely to have those extra pounds. That was true for both men and women at different ages and regardless of other factors that affect weight including your diet and exercise habits.
Odd hours seem to contribute to uncontrollable eating. When you eat late at night, you tend to eat more. Perhaps driven by hormone (荷尔蒙) increases, we long for sweeter, saltier food at night, research suggests. In one study, night eaters ate about 300 more calories each day.
“Eating late in the day aggravates reflux, writes Jamie A. Koufman, who specializes in voice disorders and acid reflux (胃酸倒流). Many of my patients find that eating late makes them suffer more from their allergies and diabetes symptoms,” he says. “Give your stomach at least three hours to digest before sleeping,” advises Jonathan Aviv, another specialist in acid reflux.
Eating breakfast late may also increase your breast cancer risk by about 17 percent for every hour you delay, according to a study of nearly 1,200 women with breast cancer in Spain, compared to more than 1,300 women who didn’t develop breast cancer. If you eat late at night, another research suggests, you may up the chance of breast cancer occurrence. While researchers work out the details of how our body clocks affect digestion and their downstream effects, one point is clear: Early is better.
12. What can be learned from the first two paragraphs?
A.What you eat makes no difference to your clocks. |
B.Not eating for a half day may do good to your health. |
C.Eating late may be more harmful than ignoring breakfast. |
D.People gain weight because of their diet and exercise habits. |
13. What does the underlined word “aggravates” probably mean?
A.Worsens. | B.Comforts. | C.Causes | D.Improves. |
14. How is the result found in the text?
A.By experimenting on people of different ages. |
B.By summarizing the data from various surveys. |
C.By comparing the studies about the eating disorder. |
D.By concluding some researches concerning eating habits. |
15. Which of the following is the best title for the text?
A.Ignore Breakfast to Lose Weight. | B.Night Eaters Are Much Healthier. |
C.Eating Late Is Really Bad for You. | D.Eating More Damages Body Clock. |