Effects of late‐night eating of easily‐ or slowly‐digestible meals on sleep, hypothalamo‐pituitary‐adrenal axis, and autonomic nervous system in healthy young males

Aim of the current study was to assess the effects of the digestibility of late-night high calorie meal on sleep and the activities of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) and autonomous nervous system (ANS) in healthy young males. For that purpose, effects of an easily-digestible meal (starch + sugar-rich meal, SSR, i.e. dessert) or a slowly-digestible meal (protein+ fat-rich, PFR, i.e. kebab) were investigated in a crossover design in 16 participants (20-26 year-old). They did not eat anything after 07:00 pm on Day 0; had an SSR meal on Day 1 and a PFR meal on Day 2 at 10:00 p.m. HPA and ANS activities were measured by cortisol awakening response (CAR) and heart rate variability (HRV), respectively. The participants provided salivary samples for CAR; had a 5-min continuous electrocardiogram recording for HRV; and filled in sleep questionnaires. Late-night eating of SSR and PFR diets increased the area under the curve of CAR (p 0.05). PFR meal significantly disturbed sleep (p<0.05) The data suggests that increased activity of HPA, but not ANS, might be involved in pathophysiology of late-night eating and that this might be due to disturbed sleep if slowly -digestible meal is consumed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.