"Researchers studied changes to meal timing in older adults and discovered people experience gradual shifts as they age. They also found characteristics that may contribute to mealtime shifts and revealed specific traits linked to an earlier death. Results from the Mass General Brigham study are published in Communications Medicine "Our research suggests that changes in when older adults eat, especially the timing of breakfast, could serve as an easy-to-monitor marker of their overall health status," said lead author Hassan Dashti, a nutrition scientist and circadian biologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School."
"Dashti and his colleagues - including senior author Altug Didikoglu of the Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey - examined key aspects of meal timing that are significant for aging populations to determine whether certain patterns might signal, or even influence, health outcomes later in life. The research team analyzed data, including blood samples, from 2,945 community-dwelling adults in the UK aged 42-94 years old who were followed for more than 20 years. They found that as older adults age, they tend to eat breakfast and dinner at later times, while also narrowing the overall time window in which they eat each day."
Older adults tend to shift mealtimes later in the day, especially for breakfast and dinner, and compress the daily window during which they eat. Later breakfast time is associated with physical and mental health conditions such as depression, fatigue, and oral health problems. Specific mealtime characteristics are linked to an increased risk of earlier death. The analysis used data and blood samples from 2,945 community-dwelling UK adults aged 42–94 who were followed for more than 20 years. Monitoring and encouraging consistent meal schedules could serve as an accessible marker and intervention target to support healthy aging and longevity.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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