Eating When You're Not Hungry Could Be More Harmful Than You Think

Hunger exists to prompt us to eat when our body needs energy. But how many of us only eat when we’re hungry? (Be honest now!) I know there’s many times I have grabbed handfuls of M&Ms out of the bowl on my assistant’s desktop even when I’ve finished lunch just 30 minutes earlier. According to traditional thinking, these extra calories are bad for us, because they could lead us to become overweight or obese.

But now there is another reason to avoid eating when you’re not hungry. It could drive up your blood sugar for surprising reasons.

Here’s why. Every time you eat, your body is faced with a surge of nutrients–fats, proteins and carbohydrates, a.k.a. sugars. In response, your body (with the pancreas in the lead) secretes a panoply of hormones that, among other things, pull those nutrients out of the blood stream and put them to work in the body, or store them for later use. Under normal circumstances, your blood sugar will surge after a meal, but the size of that surge will be dampened by these hormones.

The size of your post-consumption sugar surge matters to your health. If two people have the same average blood sugar level, the one with higher sugar spikes will usually experience more health problems. Up to now, people thought that post-consumption glucose spikes depended largely on a few factors–how many calories you eat, the glycemic index of those calories and your body’s metabolism. Well now, we have a fourth factor to think about.

According to a study by David Gal at the University of Illinois-Chicago, when people eat while not hungry, they experience sharper sugar spikes than when eating the same number of calories while hungry.  Here is a picture showing the relationship between hunger and post-consumption sugar (or glucose) levels:

The good news is that if you eat while moderately hungry, your body will do a better job of handling all those nutrients.

A couple caveats are in order. This is just one study. And it is exploring a new theory, so scientists need to conduct follow-up research to see if this finding holds up.

But in the meantime, there is a useful lesson to draw from this research. If possible, wait until you’re hungry to eat. If you’re going to snack while hungry, try something with a low glycemic index, like nuts or cheese. Your pancreas will thank you!

(Forbes)