A new research project that prompts participants to record eating habits shows the only time they fast is when they sleep, according to The Huffington Post.
In a three-week study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, most participants claimed to eat three discrete meals a day, but the breakfast, lunch and dinner pattern was “largely absent.” Instead, lead researcher Satchidananda Panda wrote, most people ate “frequently and erratically” throughout the day. About half of the participants grazed for fifteen hours a day.
“People eat as soon as they wake up and roughly eat as long as they are awake,” Panda told The Huffington Post. “This means they are fasting only when they sleep.”
That’s particularly alarming given how little some Americans sleep. “This has a huge impact on how we interpret the data on sleep and obesity/diabetes,” Panda continued. “Since short sleep correlates with obesity/diabetes, it implies people who sleep less may be munching as long as they are awake.”
