Study decodes how late-night eating leads to diabetes and weight gain

Findings could inform care for patients fed at night while they sleep with gastric feeding tubes

Scientists have uncovered why disruption to the sleep cycle and eating late at night is linked to diabetes and weight gain, an advance that has broad implications for dieting and sleep loss.

Nearly a tenth of the global population has diabetes, with the chronic health condition being the direct cause of 1.5 million deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The WHO also reported that about two billion adults across the world are overweight, of whom more than 650 million are considered to be affected by obesity.