Eating dinner early or at least two hours before going to bed can reduce the risk of breast and prostate cancer. Specifically, people who ate dinner before 9 p.m. or waited two hours after dinner before going to bed had about a 20 percent lower risk of both cancers than those who ate dinner after 10 p.m. or went to bed soon afterward, according to a July 17 report on the U.S. Daily Science website. This is the main finding of a new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health in Spain, which for the first time analyzed the relationship between cancer risk and meal and bedtime. Previous studies analyzing the association between food and cancer have focused on dietary structure (such as the effects of consuming red meat, fruits and vegetables) and the relationship between food intake and obesity, according to the report. However, little attention has been paid to other factors associated with daily eating behavior: the timing of food intake and people’s activities before and after meals. This latest experimental study demonstrates the importance of meal timing and shows the health effects of late-night eating. The new study, published in the International Journal of Cancer, was designed to assess whether meal timing was associated with the risk of developing breast and prostate cancers, two of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Breast and prostate cancers are also among the cancer types most strongly associated with night shifts, biological clock disruptions and altered biorhythms. The study collected data from 621 prostate cancer patients and 1,205 breast cancer patients, as well as 872 men and 1,321 women randomly selected from primary health centers, according to the report. These participants filled out a questionnaire about their dietary habits and compliance with cancer prevention recommendations. Study first author Manolis Coyvenas, a researcher at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said the findings “underscore the importance of assessing circadian rhythms in studies on diet and cancer.