Summary: Jim Goetz Michael Brandon Chantea Goetz We are joined by special guest Dane Cuccinello (Great Dane) to discuss night time eating, acid reflux and answer some questions on sugar alcohols. We begin as the Mad Scientist, Jim Goetz fills us in on how both diet and timing of what and how much we eat can cause acid reflux, and he shares his woes of what prompted him into addressing this issue. We delve into possible natural and easy remedies to help offset the burning and other symptoms that are related to stomach acid imbalances.It's overall touted that we want to eat more in the morning and less at night. There's a phrase that states eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper. In general this appears to hold true, though there are a few exceptions as always, but the bigger question is, why? Why shouldn't we eat large meals at night as opposed to the morning? Usually I've been told it's because we burn most of our calories during the day so on facial value that makes sense, but once we digest, our bodies store the food as fat, so it's all there none-the-less as calories to burn. So is there a real advantage to eating earlier in the day?There have been multiple studies done inquiring this exact information. One study took 2 groups of people, gave both groups identical meals each day for 3 months. They had 1 large meal at 700kcal, 1 small meal at 200kcal, and then the last was 500kcal; breakfast was 9am, lunch was 1pm, and dinner 6pm. The only difference between the 2 groups was that half of them had the 700kcal meal for breakfast and 200kcal for diner, and the other group had the opposite. A few things were found, mostly in favor of the large breakfast group. The average weight loss over the 12 weeks tripled for the large breakfast group over the large dinner squad (9lbs and 3lbs respectively). The large breakfast group also had decreased fasting glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance scores, which all can contribute to weight loss and preventing/assisting to treat some conditions such as type 2 diabetes.PennState University did a large study to delve into this topic further to see more benefits of front loading calories. They found similar results as above, but also found that larger evening meals raised total and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, slowed down fat metabolism, increased the desire for sugary foods, and slowed down gastric emptying which can lead to constipationDiet induced thermogensis, which we talked briefly about in a previous podcast about brown fat, is simply how many calories we burn off as heat as opposed to mechanical energy to make us move, think, etc. If we can burn more kcal off as heat from sitting around, why wouldn't we desire this? Eating food after 8pm, shows to decrease this thermogensis, so more food gets stored as fat of burning off as heat. The idea of timing what you eat for specific results is known as circadian rhythm eating. The circadian rhythm also plays a factor in satiety as well with people feeling fuller longer when eating more in the morning/daytime, which is known as front loading calories. If one isn't as full for as long, they are more likely to take another snack before bed, with an increased chance of choosing a high carb snack, which will turn into more total calories and sugar which could be easily avoided. On a less physiological stand point, but still important, is it's affects on sleep quality. Many studies have suggested that eating food late at night increases the chance of having nightmares which obviously disturbs sleep, increases morning anxiety, and lowers the overall quality of the sleep that is gotten. This occurs because the boost of metabolic activity from late eating causes more REM sleep activity. Mix this with the increased internal anxiety, and nightmares can develop. This appears to be more severe with sugary foods, but can occur with fat or protein based foods as well.Also a common issue with sugar at night, is it's affects on insulin, cortisol, and ultimately our sleep. This occurs more with diabetics or anyone in a hypoglycemic state at night, which is very common and is indicated by a sweet tooth in the evening. Typically cortisol slowly raises throughout the night and it helps to break down sugar in our body for all visceral functions in our sleep. People who have erratic blood sugar, which is far more than just those diagnosed with type 2 DM, don't have enough cortisol stored up in the adrenal glands to release the sugar we require. For this reason, our adrenals than release epinephrine/norepineprhine (adrenaline) to release glucose instead. This activates our fight or flight response, and causes us to wake in the middle of the night around 3 or 4am, and/or wakes anxious and nauseous in the morning.There are some methods however that allows you to eat at night without major repercussions, as well as a few possible benefits depending on how much and what precisely you eat. Firstly, previously mentioned adverse effects of delayed eating is minimized if it is under 150kcal, if it's 1 macronutrient instead of mixed meals. So having a tablespoon of butter would affect you less than buttered toast due to the carb and fat combo. However, it has been shown that if you exercise at night either before or after the snack, this can help negate the negative side effects.. This appears to be more significant for those that are obese.For those that just have a knack for a midnight snack, there are some potential benefits depending on what you eat, how much, and who you are. For example, active males who ate 1 macro nutrient within 30 minutes of bed under 200kcal (whey protein, bread, etc) actually had an increased in metabolism in the morning, but this didn't appear to hold true for elderly, diabetics, or overweight men. Another group is overweight and obese adults who ate whole grain cereal with skim milk 90 minutes before bed (totaling 190kcal) had decreased body weight after 1 month compared to no pre-bed snack. An interesting side note, is that it appears that if these late night snack were liquid based (whey protein shake compared to protein bar), the positive effects were slightly enhanced. biohackhumans.com Find us: Instagram (@biohackhumans) Facebook (@biohackhumans) Twitter (@biohackhumans) Tumblr (@biohackhumans) Contact Us: support@biohackhumans.com
