你知道改变饭点有助于减肥吗？

　　"Breakfast like a king"

　　“早餐是国王”。

　　What did you eat this morning for breakfast or lunch?

　　今天的早午饭，你都吃了些什么呢?

　　The chances are it wasn’t steak and chips, chickpea curry or anything else you might normally have for dinner.

　　很有可能不是你平常午餐吃的牛排薯片，埃及豆咖喱或者其他东西。

　　Yet some scientists believe eating more of our daily calories earlier in the day - and shifting mealtimes earlier in general - could be good for our health.

　　然而一些科学家相信，早间摄入更多的日常卡路里，将饭点前移对我们的健康有好处。

　　One study found women who were trying to lose weight lost more when they had lunch earlier in the day.

　　一项研究发现，如果女性早点吃午餐，减肥效果会更佳。

　　"There’s already a very old saying, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper, and I think there’s some truth in that," says Dr Gerda Pot, a visiting lecturer in nutritional sciences at King’s College London.

　　伦敦大学国王学院营养学访问讲师格尔达博士说：“已经有一个古老的谚语说过，早餐吃的像国王，午餐吃的像王子，晚餐吃得像乞丐。我觉得这有一定道理。”

　　Now scientists are trying to find out more about what’s driving those results and are looking at the relationship between eating and our body clocks.

　　如今，科学家正在试图探寻更多这些研究结果的推动因素，他们着眼于饮食和生物钟的关系。

　　You may think of the body clock as being something that determines when we sleep.

　　你可能觉得，生物钟是决定我们睡眠的东西。

　　But in fact there are clocks in virtually every cell in the body.

　　但是事实上，我们体内的那个细胞都有生物钟。

　　They help prime us for the day’s tasks, such as waking up in the morning, by regulating blood pressure, body temperature and hormone levels.

　　这些生物钟有助于我们为当天的任务做好准备，比如早上醒来，控制血压、体温和荷尔蒙水平。

　　Experts are now looking at whether our eating habits - including irregular mealtimes and eating too late - are far from optimal for our internal rhythms.

　　如今，专家们正在探寻，包括不规律饮食和晚食在内的饮食习惯，是否会扰乱我们的内在节律。

　　Dr Pot, who studies chrono-nutrition, said: "We have a body clock that determines that every 24 hours each metabolic process has an optimal time when something should happen.

　　研究时间营养学的格尔达博士说：“我们的生物钟可以决定，每24小时的代谢过程中，哪个时间段最适合做什么。”

　　"That suggests that having a large meal in the evening is actually, metabolically speaking, not the right thing to do because your body is already winding down for the night."

　　“这表明，从代谢角度讲，晚上吃大餐实际上不对，因为你的身体在晚上已经逐步放松了。”

　　Dr Jonathan Johnston, reader in chronobiology and integrative physiology at the University of Surrey, said although studies suggest our bodies are less good at processing food in the evening it was not yet understood why this is.

　　英国萨里大学时间生理学和综合生理学的在读生约翰斯顿博士称，尽管研究表明我们的身体不适合在晚间消化食物，但是我们还不明白其中的原因。

　　One theory is that it’s linked to the body’s’ ability to expend energy.

　　一个理论表明，这种现象和身体消耗能量的能力有关。

　　"There’s a little bit of preliminary evidence to suggest that the energy you use to process a meal - you use more of it in the morning compared with if you eat in the evening."

　　“一些初步证据表明，你早间消化食物所用的能量，比晚上用的多。”

　　Properly understanding the link between when we eat and our health is important, Dr Johnston says, because it could have big implications for helping to tackle the obesity epidemic.

　　约翰斯顿博士说，正确理解饭点和我们健康的关系很重要，因为这对于解决肥胖蔓延有重大影响。