
The Dangers of Eating Late at Night - ezhil
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/the-dangers-of-eating-late-at-night.html?_r=1
======
zamio
"In France, for example, a serving of ice cream is typically a single modest
scoop, while in America, it’s often three gargantuan scoops."

This was the first thing that struck me when I first moved here. Portions for
all kinds of food from ice-cream, to coffee are huge. Why are huge portions
such a common thing here?

~~~
learc83
I think it was because America was the first country that could eat afford to
eat like that, so we did. Look at the differences in traditional Italian food
and Italian American food.

Dealing with virtually unlimited quantities of food is a very recent problem,
and Americans were the first to have this problem at scale.

Most of the rest of the world now has this problem too. If you look at
overweight trends, most developed countries are about were America was 30
years ago [1].

There are other differences as well. For one, America was the first country
with ubiquitous car ownership--contributing to lower population density and
less walking, more time sitting, and drive through restaurants.

[1] [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/the-world-is-
fa...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/the-world-is-fat/)

~~~
ska
I think there is some truth to this, but it also seems to be true that on
average the US is valuing quantity over quality (in food) more than many other
economies that can certainly afford to overeat.

~~~
learc83
I'm sure there are some cultural differences, but keep in mind 30-40 years ago
we didn't have huge quantities they way we do now, and we didn't go out to eat
the way we do now. It took time for the cultural norm to catch up to our
ability to overeat.

While other countries can now afford to overeat as easily as we can, they've
been able to do so for a lot less time. Again the charts for percentage of the
population that is overweight and obese back up this hypothesis--other
developed countries are trailing behind the US by about 30 years. They have
just had less time to make a habit out of over-consumption.

Also, most other developed countries still haven't caught up to the US in
terms of affordable overeating. In PPP terms the US ranks 10 in GDP per
capita, higher than every other major economy and higher than almost all of
Europe by a very significant margin.

------
smtddr
To add perhaps some more support to this, see how Sumo wrestlers of Japan gain
weight: [http://www.diet-
blog.com/05/sumo_wrestlers_this_is_how_you_g...](http://www.diet-
blog.com/05/sumo_wrestlers_this_is_how_you_get_fat.php)

Particularly 3 and 4: Take a nap after eating. Eat late in the day. Probably
#1 too about skipping breakfast.

~~~
joelrunyon
> Probably #1 too about skipping breakfast.

Actually - skipping breakfast helps you keep your insulin low and promotes
lean body mass.

Your body is in prime fat burning mode in the morning and holding off on
breakfast (and spiking the blood sugar / insulin levels) can help you keep
burning fat through mid-morning.

~~~
ajcarpy2005
To a point but logically it could be concluded that skipping breakfast offers
a longer period of time where the blood sugar and insulin response has a
chance to drop lower which might hypothetically make a resulting spike from
food intake actually higher in comparison.

~~~
joelrunyon
That doesn't make any sense.

The point is that maintaining lower insulin levels promotes your body using
its fat storage rather than food.

Yes, you will eventually eat and that spike will happen, but it's not going to
be demonstrably higher of a spike because you fasted.

~~~
dllthomas
It makes sense - it's fairly common that we see things that get bigger/worse
when postponed. It's entirely possible that this doesn't happen with post-fast
insulin spikes, but it seems a reasonable thing to want to check on. At this
point it's no longer a question that can be resolved without measuring things
(or finding other people who have measured those things), though.

------
ripb
So the conclusion that can be drawn from the article is that if you can't
control your portions, eat early. If you can control your portions, as she
says Europeans do, then it's fine to eat late.

So then the issue really at hand isn't eating time, it's portion size.

~~~
jzig
I disagree. The issue at hand is both, and they are handled in different ways
by different people.

------
nakedrobot2
Sorry but like basically every other scientist's guess about nutrition, this
latest guess is anecdotal, with huge assumptions built in, a lack of control
subjects, making it, like all fad pop-diet articles spouting the newest half-
baked discovery about nutrition, vague bullshit at best.

Also it comes with the huge caveat that it's only true for those in the USA
with their poor impulse control and huge portions.

It would be good to apply "Nakedrobot2's law of nutrition articles" which
states that they are ALL A BUNCH OF LIES :-)

------
ilaksh
The idea that serious health problems can be cured with lifestyle changes is
compelling, but unfortunately often wrong. This is a big problem in medicine
in my opinion, because doctors often come into a relationship with a patient
with the assumption that the patient's own behaviors are the root of the
medical condition. This is essentially blaming the victim, and often
absolutely incorrect.

My personal anecdotes relating to this are as follows. I have had serious acid
reflux for years. It is generally the "silent" type and one of the main
symptoms I have is asthma, especially night-time or sleeping-time asthma,
triggered by the reflux.

I have tried various diets, including abstaining from caffeine, anything that
could possibly contain wheat or trigger a wheat sensitivity, Atkins, fasting.
None of those changes make my acid reflux or other related symptoms go away. I
have also done experiments with strictly reducing my intake of food and drinks
after certain times of day. This was also ineffective.

What does seem to help, to some limited degree, is taking large doses of acid
reducer pills, and staying as upright as possible while sleeping.

Also, when I had a TIF surgery to repair my minor hernia and supposedly
eliminate the reflux, it was significantly reduced, but never went away
completely. And unfortunately after a few months I must have done something to
undo much of that surgery because it is probably almost back as much as it was
before. And I know my sliding hiatal hernia is back.

~~~
specialist
I'm sorry you're in pain. Bro hug.

While I agree, I'd still consider contributing lifestyle factors after
addressing structural, physiological, and so forth.

Though my diseases cannot be cured by better nutrition, its certainly helped.
To my surprise and delight.

------
iagooar
I suffer acid reflux a lot of times. One trick I read some years ago proved to
be magical: eat a teaspoon of dry, milled coffee. It works instantly and lasts
for at least 2-3 hours. It can be tough to swallow the coffee at the
beginning, but once you get used to it, it isn't that difficult.

~~~
gypsyharlot
I found a cure that works perfectly for me.

My doctor prescribed a truckload of antiacids and proton-pump inhibitors for
me, until they stopped working. Then, as a new year's resolution, I decided to
stop eating potato chips... after avoiding them for about 3 weeks, the acid
reflux completely went away. Whether it was because of all the salt, or the
oil, I don't know, but it solved it for me. Give it a try!

~~~
meowface
Greasy and oily foods definitely seem to make acid reflux worse for me.

~~~
gypsyharlot
It could be just that. I was at a point where I could not lie down for 5
seconds without feeling like I was choking in my own acid until I quit eating
chips.

------
kreek
For me it wasn't when or how much but what. At it's worst I was taking
prescription medicine ate what I thought was healthy food (whole grain bread,
oat cereal) and still had heartburn every night. I am not celiac but
eliminating beer, whole grain wheat, and oats got rid of my acid reflux.
Wheat, especially the modern variety, is not well tolerated by humans
[http://news.discovery.com/human/why-you-should-probably-
stop...](http://news.discovery.com/human/why-you-should-probably-stop-eating-
wheat-121214.htm). If you can't give up bread eat Sourdough
[http://cookusinterruptus.com/blog/?p=4245](http://cookusinterruptus.com/blog/?p=4245)

~~~
sneak
I found that chlorinated water _or_ high-fructose corn syrup triggered mine.
That took a long time to isolate.

~~~
themartorana
This. I live in a major city and our water is majorly chlorinated. I read a
bit about this online and thought, sure, what the heck, I'll try eliminating
chlorinated water and see what happens.

Now I have an under-counter water filter and all our drinking water has a
significant amount of the chlorine filtered out. It made a huge difference for
me. YMMV, and of course doesn't mean much for well water.

~~~
themartorana
In what world does this comment get down-voted?

This is the basis for an elimination diet, which is key to discovering food
sensitivities.

Seriously...

------
tarekmoz
here:

"...two bottles of good red wine for the table [...] her reflux was
serious..."

Too much food and drink is bad for you. that's all.

~~~
aberrant
On top of this, certain foods may be worse than others. Through experience
I've found out that the following foods seem to increase symptoms related to
acid reflux: dairy products, red meat, citric products, chocolate, alcohol,
soda drinks and coffee.

~~~
leviathan
In other words, anything that tastes good.

~~~
stinos
that's just _way_ to general and way too much depending on the objective thing
called taste. Next to chocolate/coffee/... I also really like the taste of
vegetables like carrots, broccoli, fennel, pumpkins, ... I really doubt they
would fall under the category of stuff which is likely to increase reflux.

~~~
maxerickson
The only food I've found gives me heartburn is black olives.

Conveniently, I don't really like them.

------
kolev
Ori Hofmekler for years has been promoting his evidence-based Warrior Diet
[1], which claims that humans have always been nocturnal eaters and that only
the slaves were eating during the day and warriors were feasting at night. I
reduced my meals to two a day (within 6 hours), mostly at night, and have
since lost a few pounds although I've increased my caloric intake from fats. I
slowly want to shift to a single meal at night with the help of healthy fats
during the day (ghee and coconut oil). Ori says that some protein and carbs
(berries) during the day are fine.

[1] [http://www.warriordiet.com/](http://www.warriordiet.com/)

~~~
KMag
I hope this warrior diet is a good diet, and the things in your description
that make me cringe are just marketing gimmicks. What was the average life
expectancy of a warrior at the time and place this diet was based on? Likely
under 35. Your description makes it sound like the diet's creator started with
a bad premise and unhelpful constraints and used (hopefully) good science to
hill-climb his way to some local maximum in some scoring function that's
hopefully not particularly far from the global maximum in that scoring
function.

An appeal to nature is a terrible line of reasoning that underlies way too
many diets I hear friends promoting these days. The usual implied or
explicitly stated premise is that there was some time and place of peak human
fitness in the distant past, brought about by evolution, and we should return
to the diet of that time and place and apply scientific methods to improve
upon that diet.

There are at least 3 huge flaws in using evolutionary arguments to base modern
diets on what humans ate thousands or tens of thousands of years ago. Let's
start with the flawed premise that after the explosion in variety of foods
available when we learned to domesticate both animals and plants, that
evolution rapidly converged within a few thousand years the human body to be
optimally tuned for all of the foods available at whatever time the diet's
creator has chosen. (1) A human at the global optimum for a given diet does
not imply that the diet is a global optimum for the human. (The implication
arrow goes the other way. Evolution has not optimized plants and animals to be
the most fit food source for humans.) (2) Evolution tends to converge to
pretty good working solutions, not optimal solutions. (3) There hasn't been
enough time since human domestication of animals and plants for evolution to
produce more than a hand full of adaptations.

The only two human dietary-related beneficial mutations I'm aware of in the
past 10-15 thousand years both happened to have arisen in Europe. One is a
mutation that makes a high wheat diet less harmful and the other is a mutation
that causes toleration of lactose late into adulthood. The way some people
construct diets, they would then start with the premise that people whose
ancestors mostly came from Europe should mostly eat wheat and dairy products.
The diet creator would then do some reading of dietary studies to
scientifically improve the quality of the starting diet to some local maximum
based on some set of starting constraints and some limit of research effort.
This might actually produce a decent diet with whole grains, yoghurt, and lots
of fruits and vegetables added through a healthy dose of hand waving combined
with good scientific research.

It would be much better to throw out the flawed starting point. If you're
going to pick an arbitrary time and location in human history as a starting
point for constructing a diet, don't pick a time and location that had a life
expectancy less than half that of modern first-world countries. If I were to
design a diet, I would probably look at modern diets in countries with the
highest life expectancies or lowest rates of whatever diet-related maladies
you're trying to avoid, and scientifically improve the diet from there. I
might even try to find a set of countries that had very different diets and
yet all ranked highly in my selection criteria and try to find commonalities
in their diets as a starting point for designing a diet.

EDIT: I should point out that there are cases where an appeal to nature is a
reasonable line of reasoning, but I have never seen such in the context of
diet.

~~~
kolev
Warriors died young from violent deaths or infectious diseases, not from a
chronic diseases. The appeal to nature is simply following the idea that we
are what we're best adapted to, but I agree that working solutions and not
always the optimal ones. In this case though, it's more of an attempt to avoid
poorly working ones. That's why I strongly believe in having a solid base as a
diet and optimize using "hacks" like turmeric and coconut oil, for example.
I'm not adapted to those as my predecessors didn't eat those foods, but I eat
them and they optimize my ancestral diet further.

------
steven2012
Does this include Europeans? My experience is that most western Europeans are
their meals quite late, do they have the same problems that this article
purports?

~~~
lukasm
I've been thinking about difference between Poland and UK. When I lived in
Poland my day look quite different.

8:00 breakfast

11:30 2nd breakfast

15:00 Dinner (soup + main)

20:00 Supper (something light like sandwiches or boiled sausages).

I think this and more process food are the reasons why there are 2x more obese
people in UK.

~~~
k-mcgrady
How did you fit that around work? I could do the 2nd breakfast if it was
something I could eat at my desk (fruit for example) but the 15:00 dinner
would probably last too long to fit in on my lunch hour (and it's quite late
for lunch too when most employees break at 12:00 or 13:00).

~~~
lukasm
That was in school. Can't do really at work, unless you start at 7:00.

~~~
_random_
Well, I was sleeping midday in the kindergarten. I really wish I could still
do this at work.

------
mitul_45
Well there is a ritual in Jainism which says not to eat after sunset
(remember: this was written/said generations before all science and research
came into existence). Being Jain, I am just amazed by how precise our
religion/literature is. Like many other ritual, this one is also backed by
science now.

FYI: It's called "Chauvihar"
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_in_Jainism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_in_Jainism))

~~~
sumedh
> I am just amazed by how precise our religion/literature is.

Or just a coincidence/accident.

~~~
privong
Possibly coupled with an observational confirmation bias
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

~~~
mitul_45
maybe.

