How Eating Speed Might Affect Weight Loss

(RxWiki News) How fast you eat might affect your ability to lose weight, according to a new study.

This study examined eating speed and other factors in patients with type 2 diabetes. The researchers found that eating slowly, not eating within two hours of bedtime and avoiding after-dinner snacks could all help patients with type 2 diabetes lose weight.

This study looked at health insurance data for almost 60,000 patients with diabetes in Japan between 2008 and 2013. In checkups during the study period, participants were asked about their eating habits and lifestyle.

Those who said they ate slowly tended to be healthier overall and weigh less. Compared with fast eaters, those who ate at a normal speed were 29 percent less likely to be obese, this study found. The slow eaters were 42 percent less likely to be obese. And positive changes in eating speed were strongly linked to weight loss during the study period.

Also, those who didn’t snack after dinner or eat within two hours of going to bed were less likely than other participants to be obese, these researchers found.

The study authors noted that their research couldn’t prove cause and effect, but they said eating quickly could have effects on glucose tolerance and insulin resistance — two important factors in type 2 diabetes.

Talk to your health care provider about how to improve your eating habits.

This study was published in the journal BMJ Open.

A Grant-in-Aid for Health Sciences Research by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan funded this research. The study authors disclosed no potential conflicts of interest.