Women and men differ not only in the qualitative choices of food but also in the time of day in which they take it, with different metabolic repercussions.
The hunger timer: men gorge themselves in the evening
Males have a propensity to concentrate food consumption in the evening hours, risking obesity more, while women instead more in the first half of the day.
One says so studio presented at the first National Congress dedicated to “Gender Endocrinology”, promoted and organized by the Italian Society of Endocrinology (SIE) and just concluded in Naples.
Which saw gender nutrition among the central themes. Just like the well-known sleep-wake cycle that is managed by the biological clock located in the hypothalamus, other rhythms, including hunger, are also established by an internal clock marked by changes in metabolism that occur during the day.
It is important to eat in the first part of the day
“That’s why to maintain a normal weight it’s important to synchronize the time we take meals with our internal timer, concentrating the consumption of food in the first part of the day when cortisol levels are higher and the daily energy requirement is greater” – says Annamaria Colao, president of SIE and Professor of Endocrinology at the Federico II University of Naples.
47% of women concentrate their food consumption in the first part of the day against 33% of men. For the evening instead it is 46% of women against 63% of men.
“No donne therefore they tend to follow the biological clock, with beneficial effects for maintaining a normal weight. Men, on the other hand, are “late eaters” that is, night eaters when cortisol levels are lower.
This entails worse metabolic consequences because they are ‘out of phase’ with the biological timetable and a greater risk of developing obesity, also because they are more inclined than women to wake up to consume snacks at night”.
“It is therefore not decisive whether you have breakfast at 6 rather than 9 and if you have lunch at 12 or 2 pm, the important thing is that most of the daily caloric requirement is consumed within the first part of the day, i.e. generally within 3 pm ”, warns Colao.