With, eating, as with many good things in life, timing is everything. At least, if you’re a mouse. That’s the conclusion of researchers at Ohio State University, who found that mice exposed to a relatively dim light at night over eight weeks had a body mass gain that was about 50 percent more than other mice that lived in a standard light-dark cycle, even though there were no differences in activity levels or daily consumption of food. Why is that? A university news release reports while the mice in the lighted space didn’t eat more food, they did change when they ate, so the researchers next restricted their food intake to times when they would normally eat. What happened then? The mice did not gain weight. Timing, the researchers concluded, is critical to weight gain.
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