Healthy Eating, Proper Diet can Lead to Better Sleeping Habits

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Sugar has long been linked to diseases such as diabetes, but a new report reveals how sugar, along with other food, can affect the quality of one's sleep.

According to Science World Report, a study published in the "Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine" has shown how the intake of less sugar and more fiber can be the ingredients to a good night's sleep. Researchers from Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center discovered through a study that people who consume more fiber spent more time in stages of deep, slow-wave sleep, while people who have consumed more sugar or saturated fat were found to have less slow-wave sleep and more sleep interruptions. 

Health authorities claim that studies have shown how sleep quality affects one's overall health. In fact, insufficient sleep has been linked to several chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression, according to the CDC.

For the study, researchers analyzed 13 adult men and 13 adult women, whose average age was 35 years old and had normal weight at the beginning of the study. Participants were asked to spend 9 hours in bed in a sleep lab, from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., sleeping for an average of 7 hours and 35 minutes every night. Data was gathered via polysomnography, after which it was analyzed from the third night after three days of controlled feeding, and the fifth night, after one day of eating whatever the participants chose to eat.

According to Science Daily, results showed that the participants fell asleep faster when they eat fixed meals that contained lower saturated fat and higher protein content, which were provided by a nutritionist, compared to when they consumed self-selected meals. When consuming self-selected meals, participants took about 29 minutes to fall asleep, compared to 14 minutes when they ate the nutritionist-provided meals.

"This study emphasizes the fact that diet and sleep are interwoven in the fabric of a healthy lifestyle," American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. Nathaniel Watson, who was not involved in the study, commented. "For optimal health it is important to make lifestyle choices that promote healthy sleep, such as eating a nutritious diet and exercising regularly."

"Our main finding was that diet quality influenced sleep quality. It was most surprising that a single day of greater fat intake and lower fiber could influence sleep parameters," principal investigator Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, assistant professor in the department of medicine and Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, explained. "The finding that diet can influence sleep has tremendous health implications, given the increasing recognition of the role of sleep in the development of chronic disorders such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."

The CDC reports that according to the National Health Interview Survey, about 30% of adults reported an average of fewer than six hours of sleep every day between 2005 and 2007, and only 31% of high school students reported having slept for eight hours on average during a school night. The recommended hours of sleep for adults is seven to eight hours, while teens need about nine to 10 hours of sleep.