Night Time eating worsen feelings of anxiety, depression

Researchers discovered evidence that meal timing has significant effects on anxiety- and depression-like mood levels, which were connected with internal circadian misalignment.

This study brings a new ‘player’ to the table: the timing of food intake matters for our mood. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, simulated night work and tested the effects of meal timing. The researchers were able to assess mood variability with a “stringently controlled 14-d circadian paradigm.

For people who ate both in the daytime and nighttime, anxiety-like mood levels increased by 16.1% (pFDR = 0.001; effect-size r = 0.47) and depression-like mood levels increased by 26.2% (pFDR = 0.001; effect-size r = 0.78). People who ate only in the daytime did not report the increases, which led the researchers to believe that meal timing could affect mood.

Previous research has found that shift workers face a 25% to 40% elevated risk of depression and anxiety, which in part is due to a misalignment of their circadian clock and daily emotional/behavioral cycles. Therefore, Scheer and colleagues wrote, “evidence-based circadian interventions are required to prevent mood vulnerability in shift work settings.”

Meal timing is emerging as an important aspect of nutrition” that could affect one’s physical health, “the causal role of the timing of food intake on mental health remains to be tested. Future studies are required to establish if changes in meal timing can help individuals experiencing depressive and anxiety/anxiety-related disorders.

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