Restrictions on eating hours have a beneficial effect on the heart of a fly

American scientists from the Salk Institute and the University of San Diego found that the time at which food is taken can be as important as its composition. At least, this is true for fruit flies - experiments on them showed that limiting the time at which they could eat had a beneficial effect on the work of the heart.

In the experiment, one group of flies ate at will, for the second, the meal time was limited to 12 hours every day. After three weeks of demarcation, it turned out that flies with a limited diet slept better, gained less weight, and their hearts were healthier than those of a glutton. Moreover, the amount of food eaten by weight in both groups of flies was approximately the same. The results persisted for five weeks.

One of the researchers said that in the first experiment, examining the hearts of flies with limited access to food, the scientists were amazed at the safety of their hearts. At first they even decided that they somehow mixed up these flies with a younger party. They had to repeat the experiment several times to make sure that it was the temporary restriction of the diet that exerted this beneficial effect.

Experiments have shown that even for older flies (and these flies have a lifespan of about 60 days), dietary restrictions have improved their hearts.

An unexplored connection between the work of the heart and the genes responsible for circadian rhythms has also been found. In the case when a batch of flies was subjected to this diet, in which these genes were disabled, no visible improvement in the state of the heart occurred.

According to the results of previous studies, it is already known that people who carry meals in the late hours are more likely to get problems with the cardiovascular system. Of course, people are not flies, and besides, people usually don’t eat the same thing every day (except, probably, students). But at least the results of the study open up an interesting context in which it will be possible to expand our understanding of the effects of diet and nutrition on health. In the meantime, better not eat at night.