Research

Hormonal

In young adult men, a longer daily eating window is associated with higher insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and a worse cardiometabolic risk score, while a shorter time from midsleep to first food intake (earlier eating) is associated with better cardiometabolic health.

For young men, how you time your food matters for metabolic health even if it doesn't change your weight. Try to keep your daily eating window shorter (avoid grazing all day) and eat your first meal closer to when you wake up. This pattern is linked to better insulin sensitivity and lower cardiometabolic risk.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
The eating window was negatively related to HOMA-IR and cardiometabolic risk score in men... The time from midsleep point to first food intake was positively related to HOMA-IR and cardiometabolic risk score in men... These associations remained after adjusting for confounders and multiplicity.
Manuel Dote‐Montero et al. · European Journal of Nutrition · 2023

Why this rating

Cross-sectional design limits causal inference, but the sample is well-characterized with objective sleep and dietary measures, and associations persisted after rigorous adjustment.

Source

Association of meal timing with body composition and cardiometabolic risk factors in young adults

Manuel Dote‐Montero et al. · European Journal of Nutrition · 2023

DOI 10.1007/s00394-023-03141-9

cross_sectional · n=118Cited 22×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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