The time you eat breakfast could be key to losing weight and staying healthy, a nutrition expert has said. Tim Spector, who is professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said because people are tending to eat later into the evening, breakfast should be delayed until after 11am.
Professor Spector, whose name became famous during the Covid pandemic as he co-created the Zoe app which traced the spread of the virus in the community, was speaking at the Cheltenham Science Festival. He told his audience in the Gloucestershire spa town: “If you have a later breakfast, that will give you some benefits.
“I think we have to rethink all the things we have been told are unhealthy, because there’s just so much new science coming out.”
He said as people can be eating up to 9pm at night, the best way for people to fast for 14 hours overnight is to have a 11am breakfast, the Telegraph reports. There is evidence that a 14 hour fast is good for the metabolism.
He said after his talk that people in the UK are starting to have eating habits like those in Spain and Italy. And many people snack into the later evening. The Telegraph reported Prof Spector saying: “Even those who don’t do that may end up snacking up until 9pm, making it difficult to achieve a 14-hour fasting period."
And he said having breakfast at 11am is "more effective" than the 5:2 diet. This popular diet sees people 'fast' for two days on a calorie-restrictive diet and eat normally for five.
Prof Spector said that microbes in our gut have a 24-hour "circadian rhythm like us" and need a rest and said people who have 14 hours of fasting with a later breakfast could help them lose between four and 11 pounds over several months.
He added: “Their microbes essentially become more efficient at burning food.”
The idea of a 14-hour fast was also mentioned as a way to stay healthy by Dr Sara Kayat on ITV's This Morning. Dr Sara said: “250 studies were reviewed and they found that fasting for at least 14 hours a day does improve overall health.
“It’s thought to be linked to our ‘hunter-gatherer’ ancestor type of diets and how they would've then. There was one study that suggests eating between 6am and 3pm with a 15 hour overnight fast was the most natural for our body clock and that it boosted the way we managed our blood sugar levels.
“Our visceral fat - it reduced are fat around the centre and reduced inflammation,” she added.
