Just one day of binge eating has shocking effects on your body

You’ve had a long, hectic week, and the weekend arrives. One day off the healthy eating won’t hurt, you think.

Bad news. Just one day of binge eating can have a big impact on your body, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Loughborough asked 15 healthy people to eat a high fat diet for one day. They ate 78 per cent more calories than the recommended amount.

This included sausages, bacon and fried eggs for breakfast, sausage rolls and cheese sandwiches for lunch, followed by a pork pie snack, then a burger and a chocolate chip muffin.

And at the end of the day, their whole-body insulin levels had decreased by 28 per cent - an amount the researchers say is 'significant'.

The body need insulin to convert food into energy, and if your pancreas needs to produce more and more of it to do its job, it can become dysfunctional and you can eventually become at risk of developing type two diabetes.

The study concluded:

A single day of high-fat, overfeeding impaired whole-body insulin sensitivity in young, healthy adults. This highlights the rapidity with which excessive consumption of calories through high-fat food can impair glucose metabolism, and suggests that acute binge eating may have immediate metabolic health consequences for the individual.

Obviously, one day of pizza and crisps isn’t going to give you diabetes, but over the long term it could be affecting your health.

More: How eating a big breakfast helps you lose weight, according to science