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Health

What happens in your body when you overeat?

Sometimes an even sober person overeat – for example at a Christmas dinner, at a wedding, a birthday party, a company party … Nutrition experts have found out how harmful such “nutritional sins” are. And the result may surprise you.

Overeating harms our body – we all know that. But is it always true? Most research focuses on what makes long-term excessive calorie intake with our bodies.

But is occasional overeating just as harmful? They were enlightened by the team of nutrition expert Aaron Hengist from Cambridge University.

Only partially overeaten

For their research, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, the experts selected 14 healthy men between the ages of 22 and 37, who were given the task of eating pizza on different days. Then they looked at the metabolic, taste, and mood responses of those who overeat in the interests of science.

On the first day, the experiment participants had to eat enough pizza to feel eaten. To do this, they only needed to consume an average of 1,500 calories, the equivalent of just below what is called a large portion.

The next day, the limits shifted. This time, participants were to eat pizza until they could no longer. On average, they ate twice as much as about 3,000 calories.

However, some eaters managed to manage up to 4800 calories, more than three times a large portion. According to the authors, this suggests that people who are fed are actually “only partially fed.”

We have it from our ancestors

Interestingly, the eater’s body was not hardened and shocked. In most of them, blood sugar levels remained normal and fat levels increased only slightly. Both indicators are important for monitoring the risk of developing diabetes or heart and vascular diseases.

The researchers looked at how the body, in response to an excess of calories, produced elevated levels of hormones to regulate blood sugar. An increase in heart rate after overeating showed that the body was trying to cope with food.

The experiment showed that some occasional overeating is not problematic for healthy individuals. It is quite logical, because our ancestors evolved in an era when the alternation of starvation and consumption of large prey belonged to life. So the body can deal with occasional overeating – if it has no other problems.

“Occasional overeating can be normal and does not pose a major risk to our health,” Aaron Hengist said of the survey. However, he said: “Regular consumption of more food than we need is not healthy.”

In short, overeating may not be a problem. But only if you are healthy and do not make it a regular hobby.