A study of nearly 200,000 people links late-night eating to up to 30% higher liver disease risk, suggesting that your last meal of the day could matter more than you think.
Eating late at night may have consequences beyond weight gain and poor sleep. A major study led by Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) suggests that regularly eating after dinner or close to bedtime is associated with a higher risk of liver disease.
The findings, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, link late-night eating to two liver conditions: metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (fatty liver disease) and cirrhosis. For the study, late-night eating was defined as consuming food after dinner or after bedtime.
Earlier research has connected nighttime snacking with obesity and heart disease. This time, scientists wanted to determine whether the habit might also be associated with liver problems.
“A few studies have hinted at this idea, but this is among the first long-term analyses to explicitly draw the connection to fatty liver disease,” said lead author Robert Wilechansky, M.D., a hepatologist at OHSU who specializes in liver transplantation.
How Your Body Clock Affects Liver Health
Wilechansky became interested in the relationship between meal timing and liver health partly because of the health challenges faced by night shift workers. Working overnight can disrupt the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, and these workers experience higher rates of obesity and heart disease.
Fatty liver disease affects as much as 30% of the U.S. population, making it an important public health concern. Wilechansky wanted to explore whether something as straightforward as adjusting meal times could help reduce the risk.
“We know the liver is very much in tune with the body’s circadian rhythms,” he said. “So we’re interested in changing the timing of eating in a way that could make a difference in health without changing the composition of what people eat.”
Late-Night Eating Linked to 20% to 30% Higher Liver Disease Risk
To investigate, the research team examined information from three major nationwide studies: the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Together, these datasets included self-reported dietary and lifestyle information from nearly 200,000 participants. Researchers categorized people according to their eating habits and examined how those patterns related to reports of fatty liver disease and cirrhosis.
The results revealed a notable association. Participants who reported eating late at night had rates of liver disease that were 20% to 30% higher than those who did not report the habit.
Although the findings raise concerns about nighttime eating, Wilechansky emphasized that most people with fatty liver disease do not progress to its most severe complications.
“It’s important to remember, of the people who developed fatty liver disease, only a small fraction develop serious forms of the condition like liver cirrhosis,” Wilechansky said. “Even so, the big take-away here is that confining your calorie intake to several hours before bedtime might be beneficial.”
Why Eating Before Bed May Disrupt Metabolism
The findings add to growing evidence that the body’s internal clock plays an important role in how it processes food. This biological timing system helps coordinate sleep, metabolism, and other essential functions throughout the day and night.
Andrew McHill, Ph.D., a study co-author, associate professor, and sleep and circadian physiologist at OHSU, explained that the timing of everyday activities can influence health in ways that researchers are continuing to uncover.
“We are seeing over and over again that the timing of behaviors, whether it’s sleep, eating, or exercise, really matters,” said co-author Andrew McHill, Ph.D., associate professor and sleep and circadian physiologist at OHSU. “For example, we have shown that eating during the night, when the internal biological clock is promoting sleep, reduces the ability of your body to metabolize foods as efficiently and can eventually lead to obesity, diabetes, and now poor liver health.”
Previous experiments involving animals have also shown that the liver is particularly vulnerable when eating schedules become misaligned with the body’s normal sleep cycle. These findings offer a possible explanation for the connection observed in the new human study.
Scientists Are Testing Whether Earlier Meals Can Protect the Liver
Despite the association, the researchers caution that the results do not establish that late-night eating directly causes liver disease. The analysis was observational and relied on participants’ own descriptions of their eating habits, which were collected using relatively broad definitions.
Additional research is needed to determine whether shifting meals to earlier hours can actually improve liver health.
Wilechansky is now working with an OHSU team that is recruiting participants for a new study. Rather than relying solely on previously collected self-reports, the researchers plan to monitor eating habits directly and investigate whether eating earlier produces measurable improvements in people with underlying fatty liver disease.
This next phase will help determine whether adjusting meal timing could become a practical way to support liver health without requiring major changes to the foods people consume.
“Our findings add to the growing body of literature linking late-evening eating patterns to adverse metabolic and liver outcomes,” the authors write.
Reference: “Late-Night Eating is Associated with MASLD and Cirrhosis: The Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study” by Robert M. Wilechansky, Kevin Casey, Andrew W. McHill, Andrew T. Chan and Tracey G. Simon, 10 October 2026, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
DOI: 10.1016/j.cgh.2026.09.047
The research was supported by the American Association of the Study of Liver Diseases Foundation, award CTORA24-179910.
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