If you’ve followed my work for some time you know that I’ve always advocated to have your last meal at least 4 to 6 hours before you go to bed in order not to let digestion interfere with your sleep quality, your natural detoxification, your natural hormone release, or your tissue repair, all of which is multiplied during sleep. Although this should be common sense, it is very simple biology, physiology and biochemistry and there is a lot of research supporting the mechanics behind these natural processes.
So, today we’ll look at another summary of a recent study who once again proves this, although the staff at Examine.com doesn’t seem to understand the simple science behind it.
Quick Summary
In this 12-week randomized controlled trial, 38 adults with obesity and prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, were put on a time-restricted eating schedule to objectively determine sleep/wake patterns from a 7-day wrist actigraphy data obtained at baseline and at week-12. From this data, the researchers derived total sleep time (TST) and sleep midpoint over a 24-hour period, sleep onset/offset, and sleep continuity measures.
Key study details
“Food was provided to the participants, and the diets were designed to maintain body weight. The participants were instructed to eat 3 meals and a snack each day at specific times.
In the time-restricted eating group, the eating window was 10 hours long (from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.), and 80% of calories were to be eaten by 1 p.m. In the control group, the eating window was 16 hours long (from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m.), and at least 50% of calories were to be eaten after 5 p.m. Sleep was measured for 7 days using a wrist-worn device.”
Although the time-restricted group had their last meal at 6 p.m., which is a bit late for most normal people, they had already consumed 80% of their food before 1 p.m., so that last “meal” was only a very small snack that likely was digested within 2 to 3 hours, making sure that they went to bed without any ongoing digestion, as in a semi-fasted state.
Also note, and this is important, that the people in the study, in both groups, went to bed around midnight, as the feeding window for the control group was a whopping 16 hours going from 8 a.m. to 12. a.m., as in midnight. That is extremely bad and unhealthy. That also means that the control group had 50% of their food during the evening and early night, as in between 5 p.m. and 12.00 a.m. That likely meant that their digestion went on for at least 4 to 6 hours during their sleep, which is very unhealthy and will hinder our natural hormone release, especially of the very beneficial growth hormone (which actually peaks after 10 p.m. if you’re asleep as you should be,) and it will slow down detoxification and tissue repair — and of course interfere with sleep time and quality.
“Compared to the control group, total sleep time increased by 55 minutes in the time-restricted eating group.”
An increase in TST by 55 minutes is enormous! And that is simply from not destroying your sleep with the interference of food digestion. However, as usual Examine.com did not share all the data. What is also very interesting is that sleep onset shifted from a median of 12:22 a.m. to 11:52 p.m. in the time-restricted group while it remained the same in the control group.
In other words, those who went to bed on an empty stomach, as you should, shortened the time to fall asleep by 30 minutes. That difference is incredible considering that you should fall asleep within 10 to 20 minutes of lying down in your bed. It also means that these poor people likely had a sleep onset time of 50 minutes or more to begin with.
Examine.com’s take
“This was a secondary analysis of a study designed to detect differences in weight loss between groups. Sleep outcomes were not preregistered, so the finding should be considered exploratory.”
That is irrelevant as all the available data was collected during the study from wrist actigraphy, a non-invasive method used to monitor human rest/activity cycles. It involves wearing a small device, usually in a wristwatch-like device, that measures gross motor activity, vitals and can also measure light exposure. Although not as accurate as polysomnography, the data was collected for seven days and also compared to 7 days of data collected at baseline before the study began. And it was also compared to a control group where no differences were observed. And again, all this is simple biology, physiology, biochemistry, and common sense. Never eat close to going to bed.
For more on the subject, check my earlier articles “No, Never Eat Late in the Evening or at Night,” “Eating In The Evening Contributes To Diabetes? Eating Late Is Always Bad!,” “Mental Health Destroyer: Going to Bed Late,” and “Stupidity Without Bounds: Incorrect Time-Restricted Eating Vs. Energy Restriction For Sleep Quality.”
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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