What’s the Connection Between a Late Dinner and Skin Cancer?

Enjoying a midnight snack has its consequences. Acid reflux for one, but a new study from the O’Donnell Brain Institute and University of California at Irvine has found that eating late at night can also increase the risk of sunburn and skin cancer.

Based on an experiment using mice, researchers found that eating at irregular times confuses the skin’s biological clock, thus altering the daytime potency of the enzyme that protects the skin from dangerous ultraviolet radiation. Researchers fed mice during the day on opposite hours from when they normally eat, and as a result, they experienced more UV damage than when they normally ate. The sunburns appeared because xeroderma pigmentosum group A (XPA), an enzyme that heals UV-damaged skin, deviated from its daily cycle and was less present during the day. Mice that ate during their usual hours did not experience an altered XPA schedule.

"It is likely that if you have a normal eating schedule, then you will be better protected from UV during the daytime," said Joseph Takahashi, MD, one of the study’s authors and Loyd B. Sands Distinguished Chair in Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center. "If you have an abnormal eating schedule, that could cause a harmful shift in your skin clock, like it did in the mouse." Takahashi is also one of the pioneers in mammalian circadian rhythm research, and discovered the mouse and human clock gene.

Although further research on how these findings pertain to humans is needed, the study draws fascinating parallels between mealtimes and skin health.