Eating after dinner or after bedtime is associated with higher rates of fatty liver disease and cirrhosis, according to an analysis published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. A team led by Robert Wilechansky, a hepatologist at Oregon Health & Science University, pooled self-reported diet and lifestyle data from almost 200,000 people enrolled in three long-running American cohorts: the Nurses' Health Study, the Nurses' Health Study II and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Participants who reported eating after dinner or after bedtime showed a 20 to 30 per cent higher rate of all forms of liver disease than those who did not, OHSU said when it published the findings on 9 October 2026. The work was funded by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases Foundation under award CTORA24-179910. The analysis is observational, so it reports a correlation and cannot establish that late eating causes liver damage.
The data behind the number
All three cohorts collected diet and lifestyle information by questionnaire, so the eating pattern here was self-reported and broadly defined rather than measured. OHSU's release gives a single range for the increase in liver disease and no confidence intervals. Wilechansky said "this is among the first long-term analyses to explicitly draw the connection to fatty liver disease", and the release also notes that only a small fraction of people with fatty liver disease go on to develop serious forms such as cirrhosis. Co-author Andrew McHill said "the timing of behaviors, whether it's sleep, eating or exercise, really matters". The OHSU team is now recruiting for a follow-up study that will monitor eating behaviour directly rather than relying on recall.
What this means in practice
The participants were American nurses and other health professionals, so their meal patterns are not a cross-section of UK households, and the paper tracked reported habits rather than testing a change in them. Wilechansky's own summary was that "confining your calorie intake to several hours before bedtime might be beneficial", which is his reading of his own data and is reported here as his view. Perqen is not making that recommendation. Nothing in the analysis concerned supplements. It recorded when people ate, not what they took, so there is no ingredient in it and nothing in the catalogue it speaks to.
How Perqen members save
Perqen sells food supplements and this study is about meal timing, so nothing in it points at a product. Perqen membership costs £4.99 a month or £29.99 a year and applies member pricing across the whole 1,393-product catalogue from established brands.
This article reports published news and research and is for information only. Food supplements are not a substitute for a varied diet or medical care, and no product mentioned is intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Speak to your GP or pharmacist before changing what you take, especially if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or taking prescribed medicines.
Sources
- Late-night eating may be bad for your liver, study suggests (Oregon Health & Science University, 9 October 2026)
- Late-Night Eating is Associated with MASLD and Cirrhosis: The Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study (Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, October 2026)
- Late-night snacking may affect liver health (News-Medical, 9 October 2026)