According to new data, people can reduce their risk of heart attacks or strokes by making changes to their habits – including when they eat their meals.
Scientists say the modern lifestyle has led to specific bad eating habits such as eating dinner later or skipping breakfast – said by many to be the most important meal of the day.
A French study has shown people who eat at 9am are six per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than someone who dines an hour earlier.
Eating after 9pm was associated with a 28 per cent risk of cerebrovascular disease – such as a stroke -compared with eating before 8pm, particularly in women, reports the Mirror.
The research team used data from more than 103,000 French people with an average age of 42 to study the associations between food intake patterns and cardiovascular disease.
Doctor Bernard Srour said: “The results show having a first meal later in the day – such as when skipping breakfast – is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, with a six per cent increase in risk per hour delay. For example, a person who eats for the first time at 9am is six per cent more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than someone who eats at 8am.
“When it comes to the last meal of the day, eating late – after 9pm- is associated with a 28 per cent increase in the risk of cerebrovascular disease such as stroke compared with eating before 8pm, particularly in women.
Finally, a longer duration of night-time fasting – the time between the last meal of the day and the first meal of the following day – is associated with a reduced risk of cerebrovascular disease, supporting the idea of eating one’s first and last meals earlier in the day.”