Xiaoyu (pseudonym), who just turned 28, has been working in Shenzhen since graduation. Because he is engaged in the foreign trade industry, Xiaoyu often leaves early and returns late, and when the shipment is busy, he may even eat dinner as a supper.
Last month, Xiaoyu felt a dull pain in her stomach, and later she had blood in her stool from time to time. At first, I thought it was hemorrhoids, and Xiaoyu went to buy some hemorrhoid cream to apply, but the situation did not improve after a few days.
Especially since last week, Xiaoyu felt that her stomach was also uncomfortable, she always couldn't eat, and she already felt full after eating a few bites of food. Worried that it was gastroenteritis, Xiaoyu went to a nearby hospital for treatment. Gastroscopy revealed that most of Xiaoyu's stomach was covered with tumors.
The doctor sent the removed mass tissue to the home pathology department for testing, and the result was told that it was poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma, which is commonly known as the middle and advanced stages of gastric cancer.
First, is it good to sleep hungry? Studies have found that life may be extended
In order to lose weight, some people may skip the meal at night, and sleep hungry when they sleep, will this have an impact on the body?
Published in Nature in 2021, a study from Columbia University in the United States showed that going hungry at night helps prolong life.
Drosophila were selected as the study subjects and four diets were designed: 24-hour unrestricted eating, 12-hour daytime eating, 24-hour unrestricted eating after 24-hour fasting, and iTRF patterns to be studied (4-hour eating, 20-hour fasting, unrestricted the next day).
It was found that only the last species had a significant increase in the lifespan of fruit flies, with female flies increasing their lifespan by 18% and male flies increasing by 13%. What's more, 20-hour fasting is also critical – only fruit flies that fast at night and eat at noon will live longer.
Does that mean that people who don't eat at night and don't eat supper, and go to bed hungry will live longer? Not so, sleep hungry, the most direct feeling is - hunger.
The human body needs a certain amount of energy every day to maintain daily actions, if you simply and rudely do not eat, other lifestyles remain unchanged, long-term malnutrition will occur, resulting in mental malaise, lack of physical strength, mood depression and so on. For people with special diseases, skipping dinner may also aggravate the condition.
In general, there are only two types of people who can skip dinner:
First, eat more before dinner, if you eat too much big fish and meat for lunch, or eat a buffet, or eat a lot of snacks, biscuits, etc. in the afternoon, and do not exercise at night, then you can consider skipping dinner.
Second, the body has reached the obesity line, and people who need to lose weight and control their weight need to occasionally skip one or two dinners in the early stage of weight control.
Wang Silu, vice president and nutritionist of the Inner Mongolia Nutrition and Health Promotion Association, reminded that often skipping dinner may cause hunger in the middle of the night and even affect sleep. Once you can't stick to it at night, it can easily lead to eating supper, which is not conducive to calorie control.
Second, what is the effect of eating supper before going to bed on the body?
If you often eat dinner badly, and then eat greasy late-night snacks, it actually has a lot of impact on the body.
1. Induce digestive tract diseases
Gastric mucosal cells are renewed about once every 2-3 days, and night is the best time for it to repair. If you eat supper at night, it will cause gastrointestinal digestion burden, affect the repair of gastric mucosa, and may cause stomach inflammation.
2. Imbalance of nutrient metabolism
Night snacks are mostly high fat, high protein, high carbohydrates, easy to cause unbalanced nutrient intake, accelerate calcium loss, B vitamin consumption and so on.
3. The blood vessels become thin and brittle
Basal metabolism is fixed, too much intake at night, calories can not be consumed, will be stored in the body, increase islet load, cause endocrine disorders, thereby burying hidden dangers for arteriosclerosis.
4. Obesity
At night, the metabolic rate decreases, the ability to digest calories is weakened, and the excess calories will become fat stored in our body, resulting in excess fat.
Sleeping hungry is not good for the body, but eating supper is harmful, what should I do? In fact, supper is not that you can't eat, but pay attention to 2 points:
First of all, it is best to eat 2 hours in advance. If you usually fall asleep at 12 o'clock and feel hungry at 11 o'clock, eat a late night snack at 10 o'clock. In this way, you can strive to let the food be basically digested before going to bed.
Secondly, it is recommended to choose low-fat, low-calorie, high-nutritional value foods for night snacks, but also easy to digest, without increasing the burden on the stomach, it is recommended to choose fruits, yogurt, hot milk, grain porridge and other foods as supper.
In addition, Chief Physician He Qing, deputy head of the nutrition group of Guangdong Enteral Parenteral Nutrition Society, said that patients with cirrhosis are suitable for eating supper.
Because for such patients, nighttime meals help the body's nutrient absorption and provide raw materials for liver cell repair. It is recommended to eat carbohydrate-rich foods, or appropriately increase the intake of protein, vitamins and other foods, which is more conducive to recovery.
Third, blind fasting is harmful, how to eat?
There are benefits to restricting diet, but blindly insisting on skipping lunch is likely to induce malnutrition and other consequences... How should I eat it?
- 5:2 fasting method
5 days of the week eat normally, and the other two consecutive days are fasting days, and the food intake drops to 25%~30%. On the day of light fasting, I suspect eating some green vegetables, millet porridge, fruit and vegetable pulp, and boiled vegetables.
- Alternate-day fasting
Set aside 16 hours a day for the stomach "window period" not to eat, and the remaining 8 hours to eat normally, such as 6 pm to 10 am the next morning, and eat normally the rest of the time.
It should be noted that these groups of people should not take light fasting, including: pregnant women, depressed patients, advanced tumor patients, growth and development stage, and people who are overly emaciated and malnourished.
From a health point of view, it is not recommended that everyone eat late-night snacks or blindly fast, but instead of struggling with whether to eat or not, it is better to eat healthy, eat reasonably, and comply with physiological laws in order to ensure the normal operation of various organs of the body.
Resources:
[1] "If you want to "live long", you have to "keep your mouth shut"! Nature heavy: eat less, can extend life by 10%-20%! 》. Mayz Med.2023-04-18
[2] "Eating the wrong late-night snack is really harmful!" 》. Fan Zhihong_Original Nutrition Information.2017-07-17
[3] "There is a disease, doctors recommend eating "supper". The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University.2019-11-08
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