Contents:
- Medical Video: vines that cured my cancer
- What is the body's biological clock?
- The body's biological clock can be reset based on meal times
- Delays in eating hours affect blood sugar levels
- Changing meal times can reset the body clock that regulates blood sugar
Medical Video: vines that cured my cancer
The human body works based on the circadian rhythm, aka the body's biological clock. However, do you know if meals can affect the body's biological clock, especially in controlling blood sugar? See the full review in this article.
What is the body's biological clock?
A biological clock, also known as a circadian rhythm, is any change in human physical, mental and behavioral activity within 24 hours. Biological clocks can determine sleep cycles, hormone production, body temperature, and various other bodily functions.
Circadian rhythms are regulated by what is called the main clock (master clock) in the brain. The main clock is a group of nerve cells in the brain part of the hypothalamus located in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) area, which is the part that regulates hunger, body temperature and thirst. Besides being regulated by natural factors in the human body, the body's biological clock can also be affected by the conditions of light in the environment around a person.
The body's biological clock can be reset based on meal times
In a study published in the journal Current Biology found that biological clocks can be rearranged based on when someone has breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
In this study, researchers involved as many as ten young men for 13 days. They were asked to eat 3 times a day with a time lag of 5 hours. All food provided for participants has the same nutritional and calorie content.
At first each participant starts eating 30 minutes after waking up. Then after getting used to the diet, participants were asked to change their diet in the last six days of the study to 5 hours after waking up. From these changes in diet, researchers analyzed the body's biological clock from each participant.
Delays in eating hours affect blood sugar levels
As a result, changes in diet did not affect the hunger and sleep patterns of each participant. Not only that, this change in diet also has no effect on the main biological clock in the brain that regulates the release of the hormone cortisol and melatonin.
However, the researchers found that dietary changes by delaying 5 hours of normal eating time caused significant changes in blood sugar, or it could be said that the body's cycle of processing blood sugar was delayed by 5 hours than usual. Even so, this change in blood sugar cycle is not followed by changes in the insulin cycle and triglycerides.
The researchers assume that this phenomenon is caused by changes that occur in biological clocks that regulate the body's metabolism, not the main biological clock (master clock) which is in the brain.
Changing meal times can reset the body clock that regulates blood sugar
From the results of these studies, the researchers concluded that people who have circadian rhythm problems can try eating at certain time intervals to help rearrange their body clocks. This method can also prevent metabolic disorders, especially disorders of blood sugar.
In particular, the results of this study can be applied to people who often experience problems with the circadian rhythm, such as people who work shift or those who travel frequently through many time zones, such as pilots, flight attendants, sailors, musicians, ortraveler.
