Late-Night Eating Is Associated With More MASLD and Cirrhosis: CGH | October 2026

What Did the Study Find?

Investigators analysed nearly 200,000 participants from the Nurses’ Health Study, Nurses’ Health Study II and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Late-night eating was defined from self-reported consumption after dinner or after going to bed and was compared with not reporting this behaviour.

Across follow-up, researchers documented 4,477 incident MASLD cases and 312 incident cirrhosis cases. After multivariable adjustment for metabolic, dietary and lifestyle factors, late-night eating was associated with approximately 31% higher MASLD risk (adjusted HR 1.31; 95% CI 1.24–1.39) and 28% higher cirrhosis risk (adjusted HR 1.28; 95% CI 1.02–1.62). These are relative—not absolute—risk increases. Meal timing was self-reported, liver outcomes were not uniformly imaging- or biopsy-defined, and residual confounding by sleep, shift work or other behaviours remains possible. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Why Does It Matter?

The large longitudinal dataset strengthens the signal that circadian eating patterns may contribute independently to metabolic liver risk. It supports asking about meal timing during lifestyle assessment, but does not establish a therapeutic fasting interval or prove that changing eating time prevents MASLD.

GastroAGI Takeaway

Earlier, consistent meal timing is reasonable low-risk counselling, but late-night eating should be treated as a modifiable risk marker—not yet as a proven causal target.