In recent years, the high incidence of diseases such as fatty liver, high blood lipid levels, and hypertension has led people to pay more attention to vascular health.
On the path to seeking health and longevity, a 62-year-old Mr. Zhang tried a seemingly magical health method—persistently skipping dinner.
However, the story behind it is quite poignant and serves as a wake-up call for health management.
1. Skipping dinner, can it really cure all diseases?
A year ago, during a physical examination, Mr. Zhang unexpectedly found out he had high blood lipid levels and carotid artery atherosclerosis. He then started a life of long-term medication and dietary control, but after six months, there was little improvement in his condition. Therefore, he tried many methods to lower blood lipids and soften blood vessels.
Six months ago, he saw someone online sharing their successful experience in lowering blood lipids, attributing their success to “fasting for healing,” specifically skipping dinner. The logic was quite simple: since blood lipid levels are related to intake, skipping one meal should directly resolve the issue, and skipping a meal wouldn’t be harmful.
So, he also began to follow suit. Indeed, when he started skipping dinner, not only did he lose weight, but his body also felt lighter for a while. He became even more convinced that skipping dinner was effective, confidently thinking that fasting from dinner was a shortcut to health.
However, as time passed and after a re-examination, the results were disappointing. Not only did his blood lipid levels not decrease, but due to nutritional imbalance, some blood vessel functions showed mild signs of degeneration. The key issue was that his irregular eating habits had caused problems in his stomach.
In reality, many people make the same mistake as Mr. Zhang, believing that skipping dinner can clear plaques and soften blood vessels. However, the real culprit behind elevated blood lipid levels is not dinner itself, but the foods consumed at dinner. The correct logic for reducing blood lipid levels is to decrease high-cholesterol foods in dinner.
2. What happens to people who skip dinner?
A research team from the University of Iowa and the University of Tennessee, while studying the correlation between three meals a day and all-cause mortality, as well as cardiovascular disease mortality rates, found that missing any meal increases the risk of death. In particular, eating only two meals a day, especially skipping breakfast, raises the risk of vascular death, while skipping lunch or dinner increases the overall mortality risk.
Skipping dinner, or eating too late, too full, or too much meat, can deplete health and lead to a series of health risks. Therefore, dinner may indeed determine your lifespan. So what specific harms could occur?
1. Decreased immunity
Not eating dinner may lead to low blood sugar, coupled with insufficient protein intake, which can reduce the body’s immunity.
2. Accelerated aging
Skipping dinner may cause an increase in adrenaline secretion, generating more free radicals and accelerating aging.
3. Impact on sleep
Without dinner, the stomach’s contents may be digested by midnight, leading to intense hunger, affecting sleep quality, and being detrimental to health.
4. Disordered gastrointestinal function
Not eating dinner keeps the stomach in a fasting state, leaving digestive juices like gastric acid and bile unused. Over time, this can harm stomach health, inducing conditions such as gastritis, stomach ulcers, gallstones, and others.
The research team at Peking Union Medical College reminds us that the benefits of “time-restricted eating” are limited to healthy individuals without chronic underlying diseases and with regular sleep patterns, so don’t blindly follow the trend.
3. Multiple studies indicate: making three changes to dinner could lead to a longer life!
Compared to skipping dinner, having the wrong dinner habits is more likely to bring health risks.
1. Have dinner a little earlier
The research team from the University of Barcelona published in《Internatio
