Digestion: Good reasons to follow set time of eating

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies revealed that thousands of genes in the liver become active after food intake, not only at time defined by a biological rhythm, as has been commonly believed.

The work has been published on the site Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The time you eat and how quickly you eat can have a major impact on metabolism," says Satchidananda Panda, lead author of the study.

The researchers used mice with defected circadian clock. They compared those mice with the normal ones, and studied the genes of these two types of mice when they ate and when they fasted.

Scientists have discovered that mice that had no functional biological clock acquired this biological rhythm after a regime based on a very regular schedule.

They have verified this through the activation of these genes in mice. Conversely, during a long fasting, the genes of mice with a good biological clock did not work very efficiently.

The researchers concluded that the activation of genes in the liver depends on feeding schedules. If you eat accurately and consistently, most of these genes can be activated and functional.

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