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From mouth taping to six-hour nights – we asked researchers what's actually backed by science

What can life evolve into after a million years of total darkness, crushing pressure and isolation?

There is no light quite like the one inside my fridge. It makes everything look delicious, especially when I’m gazing in at the contents considering a midnight feast. But it’s not just a trick of the light. If my eyes settle on the leftovers from dinner, for instance, I know that in the few hours since they were on the table, the flavours will have had a chance to marry and meld even further. They’ll be richer, they’ll be fuller. They’ll taste… different. The thing is, the leftovers aren’t the only thing that’s different now that the clock’s struck midnight. I am too. Or rather, my metabolism is. And if I were to launch into those tasty-looking leftovers now, my body wouldn’t deal with the food the same way as it did earlier in the day. Were I to eat this food during daylight, sugars would be shifted through my system fairly swiftly. But eating it in the evening means those same sugars are going to hang around longer, causing a higher-than-normal blood sugar spike and a corresponding insulin response. Fat in the food is also more likely to get stored instead of being burned as fuel. Worse still, chances are it’s getting stored as visceral fat wrapped around my organs, instead of comparatively less-harmful subcutaneous fat just beneath my skin. And that’s all before considering how submitting to the delights of this midnight snack could upset my body clock, potentially throwing other spanners into the works of my general health for days to come. Now, I’m no hypochondriac and I’m not neurotic about food. But all these are real concerns – for everybody, not just me. It’s also a concern for the scientists who study the effects food has on our bodies. They’re discovering that when we eat matters almost as much as what we eat. The name they’ve given this clock-related phenomenon is chrononutrition, and you can find out how it’s changing our approach to mealtimes in this issue.

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