We believed that raiding the refrigerator at dawn was a lack of willpower. Science has discovered the real culprit

When night comes, there are many people who cannot conceive of watching a series without something in your hands to eatand not exactly a little carrot, but a little ice cream or some ultra-processed bun. Traditionally, popular culture and fad diets have dismissed this behavior as a simple “lack of willpower” or a sweet tooth. However, the most recent scientific evidence suggests that it is not gluttony, but chronic stress taking control.

Night feeding. Eating at night is not always a disorder, but medical literature has been delineating for decades when the line is crossed. Already in 1955, a researcher defined the bases of the so-called night feeding syndrome (NES), characterized by a curious triad: lack of appetite in the morning, hyperphagia at the end of the day and insomnia with awakenings to raid the pantry in the middle of the night.

Today, the diagnostic criteria have been updated and indicate that this syndrome occurs when more than 25% of daily calories are consumed after dinner, or if there are two or more episodes of nighttime binge eating per week for at least three months.

The trigger It is none other than the hated stress and emotional dysregulation. Here various studies they point Because this nocturnal snacking is associated with a depressed mood, high levels of stress and the need to eat to find a little comfort after a very difficult day.

The biological clock. When we eat late, usually after nine at night, or in the two hours before going to sleep, the reality is that we are sending contradictory signals to our ‘primal’ endocrine system. On the one hand, eating at night prolongs the rise of cortisol, which is the stress hormone, at a time when it should be at its lowest levels to prepare the body for sleep.

In this way, the body postpones the secretion of the hormone that induces sleep, which is melatonin, and the serotonin and dopamine receptors are altered to respond to food intake.

An explosive cocktail. Perhaps one of the most surprising recent findings is the devastating impact that this combination has on our digestive system, since if we combine a high level of stress with late dinners or nightly visits to the refrigerator, the result is catastrophic for the microbiota.

Science suggests that those who combine poor sleep, stress and eating habits are up to 2.5 times more likely to see their intestinal health diminished, and also have noticeably less diversity in the bacteria in their microbiome.

The whiting that bites its tail. In the end, we are faced with a textbook vicious cycle, wonderfully documented by the University of Arizona. According to your investigations60% of adults confess to itching at night on a regular basis. Of them, two-thirds admit that it is precisely lack of sleep that triggers junk food cravings. But precisely eating at these hours makes you less sleepy. And so on.

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In Xataka | We Spaniards love to have dinner at 9:30 p.m. and even at 10:00 p.m. Who is paying the price is our body