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Change to nightly eating habits may help protect your heart, study suggests
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Abstaining from food three hours before bedtime could benefit heart health, according to a recent study by Northwestern University.
Extending an overnight fast for two hours, dimming the lights and not eating for three hours prior to sleep were shown to improve cardiovascular and metabolic health.
The results were observed among middle-aged and older adults, who are at a higher risk for cardiometabolic disease, as stated in a university press release.
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Time-restricted eating has recently surged in popularity due to its potential to improve heart health and aid in weight loss, the researchers noted.
“But most studies have focused on how long people fast, not how their fast lines up with their sleep schedule — a key factor in metabolic regulation,” the study authors wrote.
Catering time-restricted eating to a sleep cycle could improve heart health, research found. (iStock)
The nearly eight-week study, published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, examined 39 overweight and obese participants between 36 and 75 years old. The intervention group was made up of 80% women.
The participants completed either an extended overnight fasting intervention — 13 to 16 hours — or a “habitual fast” of 11 to 13 hours. Both groups dimmed the lights three hours before bedtime.
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People who finished eating at least three hours before going to bed saw “meaningful improvements” compared to participants who continued with their usual eating routines.
Those improvements included a 3.5% drop in blood pressure and a 5% drop in heart rate, as well as a “more natural drop” in both measures during sleep, which is “an important sign of cardiovascular health,” the researchers found.
People who did not eat three hours before bedtime saw a dip in blood pressure and heart rate. (iStock)
The fasting participants’ hearts also beat faster during the day when they were active and slowed at night during rest — a pattern that’s linked to better heart health.
Those who abstained from eating also had better daytime blood sugar control, meaning the pancreas responded “more efficiently” when challenged with glucose, “suggesting it could release insulin more effectively and keep blood sugar steadier.”
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First author Dr. Daniela Grimaldi, research associate professor of neurology in the division of sleep medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, commented on these findings in a statement.
“Timing our fasting window to work with the body’s natural wake-sleep rhythms can improve the coordination between the heart, metabolism and sleep, all of which work together to protect cardiovascular health,” she said.
Intervention participants experienced lower heart rates during rest. (iStock)
Grimaldi noted that she and her fellow researchers were “genuinely excited” about the consistent improvements shown.
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“Seeing that a relatively simple change in meal timing could simultaneously improve nighttime autonomic balance, blood pressure dipping, heart rate regulation and morning glucose metabolism, all without calorie restriction or weight loss, was remarkable,” she told Fox News Digital.
Grimaldi noted that the three-hour pre-sleep fasting window is “critical,” because that’s when melatonin rises and the body transitions toward sleep, “a period when eating disrupts metabolism.”
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Sleep expert Dr. Wendy Troxel, RAND Corporation senior behavioral specialist and a licensed clinical psychologist in Utah, emphasized the study’s high adherence rate, at nearly 90%.
“High rates of compliance suggest that this approach may be both feasible and sustainable in real life and could have a demonstrable impact on improving cardiometabolic health,” Troxel, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
The three-hour pre-sleep fasting window is “critical,” because that’s the time period when melatonin rises and the body transitions toward sleep, a researcher noted. (iStock)
The findings add to growing research linking sleep and circadian rhythms to cardiovascular health, she added. “In fact, the American Heart Association now recognizes healthy sleep as one of its Life’s Essential 8 pillars for heart health.”
Limitations and future research
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to expand the study to larger, multi-center trials to determine whether the benefits persist or “translate into reduced cardiovascular events or diabetes.”
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Future studies could also explore the potential benefits of extending time-restricted eating.
“We also want to test this specifically in people with hypertension or diabetes, [who] might benefit most,” Grimaldi shared. “And exploring how this combines with other behavioral interventions, like exercise or morning light exposure, could help us develop more comprehensive strategies for cardiometabolic health.”
The fasting participants’ hearts beat faster during the day when they were active and slowed at night during rest, a pattern that’s linked to better heart health. (iStock)
The high percentage of women poses a study limitation, as it limits the ability to draw “definitive conclusions” about gender differences, Grimaldi acknowledged.
“We need studies powered to examine sex differences,” she said. “Additionally, our 7.5-week intervention was long enough to show physiological changes, but not long enough to see effects on weight or long-term health outcomes.”
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Northwestern University reported that only 6.8% of adults in the U.S. had optimal cardiometabolic health from 2017 to 2018.
These conditions can lead to chronic illness, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Heart disease is the No. 1 global killer, according to the CDC.
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Eating too much salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but new research suggests it could trick the immune system into prematurely aging the blood vessels.
A preclinical study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified a biological chain reaction that links a salty diet to cardiovascular decay.
Scientists at the University of South Alabama observed that mice on a high-salt diet experienced rapid deterioration in their blood vessel function.
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After just four weeks of high sodium intake, the small arteries responsible for regulating blood flow lost their ability to relax, according to a press release.
The team found that the cells lining these vessels had entered a state of cellular senescence, a form of premature cellular aging in which cells stop dividing and release a mix of inflammatory signals that can damage surrounding tissue.
Excess salt has long been linked to high blood pressure, but a new study goes deeper into its effects on the cardiovascular system. (iStock)
The researchers tried to replicate this damage by exposing blood vessel cells directly to salt in a laboratory dish, but the cells showed no harmful effects.
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This suggests that salt isn’t directly causing damage to the vascular lining but that the real culprit may be the body’s own defense mechanism, the researchers noted.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16 (IL-16), which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system to release a molecule called interleukin-16, which acts as a messenger that instructs blood vessel cells to grow old before their time, according to the study. (iStock)
Once these cells age, they fail to produce nitric oxide, the essential gas that tells arteries to dilate and stay flexible.
To test whether this process could be reversed, the team turned to a class of experimental drugs known as senolytics.
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Using a cancer medication called navitoclax, which selectively clears out aged and dysfunctional cells, the researchers were able to restore nearly normal blood vessel function in the salt-fed mice, the release stated.
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By removing the decaying cells created by the high-salt diet, the drug allowed the remaining healthy tissue to maintain its elasticity and respond correctly to blood flow demands.
Excess salt may trigger the immune system into stopping the cells from dividing, the study suggests. (iStock)
The study did have some limitations. The transition from mouse models to human treatment remains a significant hurdle, the team cautioned.
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Senolytic drugs like navitoclax are still being studied for safety, and the team emphasized that previous trials have shown mixed results regarding their impact on artery plaque.
Additionally, the researchers have not yet confirmed whether the same IL-16 pathway is the primary driver of vascular aging in humans.
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
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They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
DEATHS FROM ONE TYPE OF CANCER ARE SURGING AMONG YOUNGER ADULTS WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES
The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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