Eating dinner early is a healthy lifestyle recommended by medical experts. Related studies have shown that eating dinner early can significantly reduce the incidence of urinary tract stones.
I. Avoid eating dinner too late
The peak time for calcium excretion in the human body is often 4 to 5 hours after a meal. If dinner is too late, when the peak calcium excretion period arrives, the person is already asleep. Urine then remains in the urinary tract, such as the ureter, bladder, and urethra, and cannot be excreted from the body in a timely manner. This causes calcium in the urine to continuously increase, making it easy to deposit and form small crystals, which gradually grow and form stones over time. Therefore, having dinner around 6 p.m. is more appropriate.
II. Avoid eating dinner too rich in meat
Dinner should be light, mainly rich in carbohydrates, and the less protein and fat consumed, the better.
However, in real life, because most families have ample time to prepare dinner and eat a rich meal, this is detrimental to health. According to scientific research reports, consuming large amounts of high-protein foods such as meat, eggs, and milk at dinner can increase the amount of calcium in the urine. On one hand, this reduces the body's calcium stores, triggering rickets in children, myopia in adolescents, and osteoporosis in the middle-aged and elderly. On the other hand, a high concentration of calcium in the urine greatly increases the likelihood of developing urinary tract stones. Furthermore, excessive protein intake that the body cannot absorb will remain in the intestines, where it can spoil and produce toxins such as ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, which irritate the intestinal wall and induce cancer.
If you consume too much fat, it can increase blood lipids. Research data shows that people who often eat meat for dinner have 2 to 3 times higher blood lipids than vegetarians. Carbohydrates can generate more serotonin in the body, which has a calming and sedative effect and is particularly beneficial for those with insomnia.
III. Avoid eating too much for dinner
Compared to breakfast and lunch, dinner should be smaller in portion.
In the evening, with no other activities or a later mealtime, eating too much for dinner can cause cholesterol levels to rise, stimulating the liver to produce more low-density and very-low-density lipoproteins, thus inducing arteriosclerosis. Long-term overeating for dinner repeatedly stimulates large amounts of insulin secretion, which can often lead to premature failure of pancreatic beta cells, thereby laying the groundwork for diabetes.
In addition, an overly full dinner can cause the stomach to expand, putting pressure on surrounding organs. The strenuous work of the stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas after a meal sends signals to the brain, causing it to become active and spreading to other areas of the cerebral cortex, which can induce insomnia.