We try to be healthy all day, but sometimes, it's just too hard to resist temptation when our stomachs begin to rumble before bed. So, we go ahead and pour ourselves a bowl of cereal, scoop some ice cream or pop open the chips and dip for a little midnight snack.
While it might seem harmless to indulge every once in a while, a new study says that breast cancer survivors should skip having late-night snacks if they want to reduce the risk of tumors returning.
Published on Thursday in the journal JAMA Oncology, researchers found women who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer were more likely to not see the recurrence of the disease if they refrained from eating for 13 hours or more each night.
To come to this conclusion, researchers used a previous study conducted on mice that found those who fasted overnight for about 16 hours had a smaller risk of gain, suffering from inflammation and blood sugar problems — all which are negative outcomes of cancer.
The researchers then analyzed data from over 2,400 women who were between the ages of 27 and 70 when they were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. They then tracked the women's data to find that, about seven years later, 390 of the survivors saw a recurrence of the cancer.
Participants who fasted for less than 13 hours per night were at a 36 percent higher risk of the breast cancer returning than those who skipped late-night snacks. Not only that, but the study also found that women who fasted for shorter amounts of time at night had an increased risk of death. However, it's hard to say if there is a direct correlation.
The study suggests that avoiding midnight snacking and instead fasting for an adequate amount of time between dinner and the next morning's breakfast could be a "simple, non-pharmacologic strategy for reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence," the authors write.
It's not known exactly why fasting at night can influence the risk of breast cancer returning, but more sleep and consuming less sugary foods are known to be good for the body. According to the study, the women's blood sugar went down every two hours while fasting, while their amount of sleep increased.
Even though this may now have people feeling guilty when they head for the refrigerator late at night, the study's findings should be good news to survivors, since cutting the snacking before they go to sleep is an easy lifestyle change that could have the greatest reward: keeping their cancer away.
Source: The Washington Post
Photo: Danielle deLeon | Flickr
