▎ WuXi AppTec content team editor
Ancients Cloud: Stomach disharmony is restless. This means that eating too much will not only affect digestion, but also lead to poor sleep quality. Around the world, the link between diet, sleep and health has been discussed since ancient times.
At the Sleep Center of Excellence at Columbia University, a team focused specifically on the link between sleep and diet and its impact on cardiometabolic risk factors. Today, we're going to take a look at the medical findings based on the findings of the Center for Sleep Excellence at Columbia University in recent years.
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Lack of sleep may increase the amount of food eaten
According to the 2019 China Sleep Index Report, more than 300 million people in China have sleep disorders, of which about 75% fall asleep after 11 p.m., and about 33 percent stay up until 1 a.m. to sleep.
Moreover, there is a clear trend of rejuvenation in sleep disorders. In the past, sleep disorders have always been a high incidence of middle-aged and elderly people; but in recent years, more and more young people can't sleep, sleep enough, and sleep badly. Too little sleep and sleep disturbances have been linked to a range of health problems, such as poor mental health, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
In addition, sleep may also be related to appetite. The study, published in The American journal of clinical nutrition, found that reduced sleep increased energy and fat intake.
In the study, the researchers recruited 30 adults of normal weight, each of whom was required to complete 2 phases of the test, each lasting 6 days:
Short-term sleep: Go to bed at 1 a.m. and get up at 5 a.m. every day.
Habitual sleep: Go to bed at 10 o'clock every night and get up at 7 o'clock.
At each stage, the diet for the first 4 days was severely restricted by the worker; but in the last 2 days, the participants were able to choose the foods they wanted to eat, but were weighed and recorded by the researchers.
The researchers found that people who slept 3 hours and 46 minutes a day had multiple increased intakes compared to participants who slept an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes a day.
Total daily energy intake: 9.2% increase for men (P=0.14) and 15.3% for women (P=0.07).
Total daily fat intake: 10.3% increase for men (P=0.32) and 39.0% for women (P=0.007).
Daily saturated fat intake: 9.6% increase for men (P=0.57) and 61.7% for women (P=0.02).
However, intake of carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugar, and sodium was not observed to be affected by sleep duration (about 4 hours less per night).
The researchers found that this may be because sleep-deprived people feel hungrier and more inclined to crave high-fat foods, thereby stimulating the brain's reward center and making themselves happier.
However, simply going to bed early may not necessarily lead to high-quality sleep, and sleep quality may also be related to eating habits.
A healthy diet is good for sleep
We know that drinking too much coffee before going to bed and eating too much dinner can lead to poor sleep. So what effect does the overall daily eating habits have on sleep?
Research published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that eating too little dietary fiber during the day and consuming too much saturated fat and sugar are associated with a disturbed (easy to wake up) nighttime sleep and poor sleep quality. Healthy eating can shorten the time to fall asleep by about 12 minutes and improve the overall quality of sleep.
In contrast, other studies suggest that melatonin supplementation can reduce sleeptime by an average of 4 minutes. This suggests that the effects of diet on sleep may be similar or even more pronounced to supplements.
Another study published in the journal Sleep found that eating a Mediterranean diet was associated with adequate sleep duration, reduced symptoms of insomnia, and improved sleep quality.
The Mediterranean diet emphasizes:
Vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, olive oil and spices should be available all at once;
Fish and seafood are eaten at least 2 times a week;
Eat poultry, eggs, cheese and yogurt in moderation;
Stay away from red meat and sugars;
If you have to drink alcohol, you can drink some red wine in moderation, of course, it is best not to drink alcohol. At the same time, staying active and increasing physical activity is also an integral part of the Mediterranean diet.
In the study, after adjusting for the confounding factors, it was found that compared with those who did not follow the Mediterranean diet:
People who followed the Mediterranean diet were 35% less likely to experience short sleep duration and symptoms of insomnia (OR=0.65, p
People who follow a Mediterranean diet are more likely to sleep 6-7 hours a night and are more likely to get a good night's sleep than to sleep every night
In addition, in the list of the best diets of 2022 published by U.S. News and World Report, the Mediterranean diet also won the top spot in the list of best healthy diet, best diabetic diet, best plant diet, best heart diet and most easy to follow diet.
Researchers point out that part of the reason for the impact of diet on sleep may be that fish, poultry and eggs, protein-rich foods contain tryptophan, which helps the secretion and synthesis of melatonin in the brain, thereby regulating sleep. Other foods, such as tomatoes, pineapples, tart cherries, bananas, apples, nuts and other foods, contain melatonin themselves. Eating these melatonin-rich foods may also raise your melatonin levels, which is good for sleep.
However, the relationship between diet and sleep is far more than that.
Sleep and diet can form a vicious circle
Poor sleep quality and poor eating habits can form a vicious circle, that is, poor sleep quality can prompt people to eat unhealthy foods, and unhealthy diet structures in turn can affect sleep quality.
The study, published in The Journal of Nutrition, found that women's habitual night owls can lead to unhealthy eating patterns, and they typically eat relatively fewer plant proteins, fruits and vegetables. The higher energy density and lower nutrient density in the diet (unhealthy diet structure) may be related to poor cardiovascular health.
Another study, published in Chronobiology International, also found that those who habitually became owls at night had higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease and premature mortality.
The study notes that for people who habitually sleep late, reducing the intake of foods high in their diets that are high in fat, high in carbs, low in protein and low in nutrient density may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
However, it may not be easy to change the diet of night owls. The researchers point out that to break this vicious circle, getting up early seems worth a try. In addition to waking up early, we can also try mindfulness practices, such as regulating eating and sleeping habits through meditation.
Developing good eating habits can help promote quality sleep, while improving sleep quality can help make better food choices. The interaction between diet and sleep has not been fully recognized, but perhaps, each of us can find diet and sleep habits that are beneficial to our health and suitable for our own health from daily life.