The Mediterranean diet study [0] is correlation analysis, not causation. As in, the purported vicious cycle may not exist, but both may be symptoms of something else.
I skimmed the 4h/night study too. [1]
Not sure whether it holds up. People eat a little more if they sleep half as much. Maybe people generally bad at avoiding hunger cravings, and more time awake means more giving into cravings?
"People consistently eat while awake" wouldn't be a good paper, I guess.
(I have to ask whether the purported 20g more fat is a typical amount for a meal, 8g more saturated fat. That's butter, lard, cheese, cured meats.)
EDIT: I looked at the Fiber intake paper too [2]. The dataset from the origin study excludes so many people (such as poor sleep quality people?) I wonder who is left:
> Some exclusion criteria included shift work or any work that required frequent travel across time zones, metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension, smoking, and eating disorders, sleeping disorders, or neurological disorders. Further exclusion criteria included the use of medication, including benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and other medications for insomnia. The presence of sleep disorders, excessive daytime sleepiness, and poor sleep quality were also exclusionary, and were assessed with the Sleep Disorders Inventory Questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, respectively.
Not to say this is p-hacking, but excluding people who report poor quality sleep seems very odd for someone recommending diets to improve sleep.
The author also says stuff in there like "Clinical studies have shown that sleep restriction leads to increased energy intake, energy intake from snacks, and intake of energy-dense foods." yet their citations are both correlation analysis.
> Maybe people generally bad at avoiding hunger cravings, and more time awake means more giving into cravings?
Maybe but I think "poorer/more impulsive decision-making is correlated with poor sleep" sounds very plausible.
tpoacher
Came here to say the same.
I like how confidently the author leaps to the conclusion from this that the causal link for this "must therefore be tryptophan".
Citogenesis waiting to happen.
throwawaygh
> People consistently eat while awake
would honestly be an excellent paper title in any topical journal.
DeWilde
In any case, the solution is simple and the same: sleep.
watwut
> Maybe people generally bad at avoiding hunger cravings, and more time awake means more giving into cravings?
You should not have food cravings in the first place.
jacobmischka
That's a dismissive thing to say. Everyone has food cravings, no one eats cake or ice cream because it's good for you.
krallja
I feel like this effect is multiplied because, when I’m tired, I am much more likely to want fast food because it takes less effort, not just because it’s greasy and salty.
mrslave
Similar here but with sugar. I feel like I just need some fast-burning carbs to power the brain for just one more hour of work before I can rest.
marcyb5st
Have you tried doing keto or intermittent fasting?
My energy levels are much more constant and I generally feel better and more productive. For instance, I don't get the after lunch drowsiness that forced me to have more coffee in the afternoon.
The downside is that these approaches are either more expensive (processed carbs are by far the cheapest option in any supermarket), more time consuming, or harder to get into (keto flu can be a massive pain in the butt).
However, they are sustainable and that's why I didn't use the word "diet" that for me is something limited in time. In fact, I have been doing some form of fasting since shortly after covid started because being stuck at home I noticed I was snacking way too much out of boredom.
senectus1
absolutely, I eat worse when I sleep less and the effect is doubled in winter. I really lay on the calorie rich "soul food" in winter as much as I try really hard not to.
steve_adams_86
This is anecdotal but I find a couple things get me off of soul food kicks.
One, exercise seems to keep me on the straight and narrow. I almost never drink, but when I did, running reduced it a ton. Today I find it increases my appetite for all varieties of foods. I still want the biscuits and gravy, but a carrot is super appealing to. As a result I’ll end up filling dietary space with a wider variety of food.
I also find my eyes become more aligned with my stomach. As in my desire for a lot of food reduces and I’ll start eating more sensible amounts.
Otherwise really prioritizing sleep makes a huge difference. In winter I tend to get bored because so little is going on, or so it seems. I can fall into habits of staying up too late trying to find something engaging to do. Of course, I rarely do. The hours fly by and suddenly I’m primed to get a terrible sleep.
I try to make sure I go to bed earlier than I would in summer, then wake up early and experience first light and stuff. Like walk to work as the sun rises, walk to get a coffee outside if I’m already at work. Get fresh air and light nice and early.
Anyway, just sharing in case you hadn’t tried these things and you’re curious about other experiences. I really struggle with eating way too much in winter.
senectus1
yeah exercise drops off for me in winter. this next winter i'm going to do something about that... I gained almost all that I'd lost in the last winter :-/
koala_man
> Our work showed that reducing sleep by about four hours per night, for four nights, led to an increase in eating, amounting to about 300 calories per day
Is it just me or is this a rather extreme amount of sleep deprivation for a comparatively small caloric effect?
dragontamer
300 calories a day is roughly +1/2 a pound per week. That actually adds up rather quickly, 2 pounds in a month, 12 pounds in 6 months, 24 pounds in a year.
To get rid of that, you need to drop 600 calories off what you got used to, for the same time period. So I wouldn't underestimate the effort here.
chrisfosterelli
Fair point, but doesn't that assume that calorie burn is static? Presumably if these people are up for four hours extra they are burning more calories than they'd be if they spent equivalent time asleep.
akiselev
IIRC average basal metabolic rate is under 100 calories an hour when awake and about 50 when asleep. All it'd take is a can of Coca Cola to wipe out the difference.
koala_man
Right, but the time I can manage with four fewer hours per night is measured in days, not months. I'd be more worried about falling asleep in traffic than gaining one pound.
Terry_Roll
No mention of Taurine and how the older you get the more you need to consume and the longer you can sleep for.
Take it right before you go to bed to see the best results, if taken during the day, you'll be hauling rear-end.
Word of warning, you will probably sleep through man made noises, like fire alarms & vehicles, natural sounds like dogs barking, people talking things like that should still wake you up though, so maybe choose a natural alarm clock sound.
Creatine may also play a role in increasing sleep especially if stressed, but little research into that side of things, what some would still consider anecdotal.
dataangel
> No mention of Taurine and how the older you get the more you need to consume and the longer you can sleep for.
I was curious about this claim so I tried researching and couldn't find anything. Everybody just seems to look to the same study of Taurine that was done in fruit flies. I didn't see any human studies, let alone interventional studies. Even the idea that you need to consume it didn't pan out -- your body can synthesize it from a couple amino acids and B6. Do you have a source?
Terry_Roll
Your body can synthesise a lot of things, which is why they are often considered non essential, glycine being one of them.
Here's a study, not read this one before, but its not hard to find
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115565/
"The pineal hormone melatonin was also measured in the present and previous study (11), with significantly increased plasma concentrations being observed during sleep deprivation. Increased tryptophan and taurine could explain the increased melatonin levels, as taurine has been shown to increase pineal melatonin by stimulating the activity of its rate limiting biosynthetic enzyme, N-acetyltransferase (42). "
suction
Interesting, but still quite a reach to make the claims you did above, no?
teruakohatu
How much do you take and how soon before you want to go to sleep?
Terry_Roll
5grams within 30minutes of hitting the sack.
teruakohatu
Phew that is a lot. Do you know of any research that support this much for sleep, and how much the body can tolerate for extended periods of time?
The best I found was this from the European Food Safety Authority
what does "hauling rear-end" mean? genuine question. I googled but it's all predictably cars
tcoff91
Hauling ass is the more common form of the phrase. It means going very fast. What he means here is that if you take it in the day, it’s stimulating, but at night it will help you sleep. I have personally never heard of Taurine as a sleep aid, but it’s a common component of energy drinks.
dathinab
And there I thought that I was mistaken when I felt that I'm eating more when sleep deprived.
galaxyLogic
It's interesting. It could be related to the fact that if you didn't have enough sleep you feel tired and this "bad" so your natural inclination is to think maybe if I ate something good I would feel better.
The best thing to do would be to follow the natural instinct and juts get some sleep but often that is not possible, in the office for instance.
wwilim
They lost me at mindfulness
boffinism
Ha! You mean the one mention in the article where they said that diet seemed to have a bigger impact on sleep quality than popular mindfulness practices? So even an article that downplays the significance of mindfulness contains too much mindfulness for you?
jraby3
Too lazy to look them up but there have been studies done showing that eating while watching tv causes you to eat significantly more calories than just eating.
The word mindfulness gets thrown around a lot but that doesn’t necessarily negate the strength of these studies.
amznbyebyebye
A tired body needs to rest. Tire out the body, rest.
squats, alternating lunges, push-ups / plank, heck just sitting on your knees with an erect spine. Don’t need any equipment
I skimmed the 4h/night study too. [1]
Not sure whether it holds up. People eat a little more if they sleep half as much. Maybe people generally bad at avoiding hunger cravings, and more time awake means more giving into cravings?
"People consistently eat while awake" wouldn't be a good paper, I guess.
(I have to ask whether the purported 20g more fat is a typical amount for a meal, 8g more saturated fat. That's butter, lard, cheese, cured meats.)
EDIT: I looked at the Fiber intake paper too [2]. The dataset from the origin study excludes so many people (such as poor sleep quality people?) I wonder who is left:
> Some exclusion criteria included shift work or any work that required frequent travel across time zones, metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension, smoking, and eating disorders, sleeping disorders, or neurological disorders. Further exclusion criteria included the use of medication, including benzodiazepines, antidepressants, and other medications for insomnia. The presence of sleep disorders, excessive daytime sleepiness, and poor sleep quality were also exclusionary, and were assessed with the Sleep Disorders Inventory Questionnaire, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, respectively.
Not to say this is p-hacking, but excluding people who report poor quality sleep seems very odd for someone recommending diets to improve sleep.
The author also says stuff in there like "Clinical studies have shown that sleep restriction leads to increased energy intake, energy intake from snacks, and intake of energy-dense foods." yet their citations are both correlation analysis.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6231522/
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3142720/
[2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4702189/
Maybe but I think "poorer/more impulsive decision-making is correlated with poor sleep" sounds very plausible.
I like how confidently the author leaps to the conclusion from this that the causal link for this "must therefore be tryptophan".
Citogenesis waiting to happen.
would honestly be an excellent paper title in any topical journal.
You should not have food cravings in the first place.
My energy levels are much more constant and I generally feel better and more productive. For instance, I don't get the after lunch drowsiness that forced me to have more coffee in the afternoon.
The downside is that these approaches are either more expensive (processed carbs are by far the cheapest option in any supermarket), more time consuming, or harder to get into (keto flu can be a massive pain in the butt).
However, they are sustainable and that's why I didn't use the word "diet" that for me is something limited in time. In fact, I have been doing some form of fasting since shortly after covid started because being stuck at home I noticed I was snacking way too much out of boredom.
One, exercise seems to keep me on the straight and narrow. I almost never drink, but when I did, running reduced it a ton. Today I find it increases my appetite for all varieties of foods. I still want the biscuits and gravy, but a carrot is super appealing to. As a result I’ll end up filling dietary space with a wider variety of food.
I also find my eyes become more aligned with my stomach. As in my desire for a lot of food reduces and I’ll start eating more sensible amounts.
Otherwise really prioritizing sleep makes a huge difference. In winter I tend to get bored because so little is going on, or so it seems. I can fall into habits of staying up too late trying to find something engaging to do. Of course, I rarely do. The hours fly by and suddenly I’m primed to get a terrible sleep.
I try to make sure I go to bed earlier than I would in summer, then wake up early and experience first light and stuff. Like walk to work as the sun rises, walk to get a coffee outside if I’m already at work. Get fresh air and light nice and early.
Anyway, just sharing in case you hadn’t tried these things and you’re curious about other experiences. I really struggle with eating way too much in winter.
Is it just me or is this a rather extreme amount of sleep deprivation for a comparatively small caloric effect?
To get rid of that, you need to drop 600 calories off what you got used to, for the same time period. So I wouldn't underestimate the effort here.
Take it right before you go to bed to see the best results, if taken during the day, you'll be hauling rear-end.
Word of warning, you will probably sleep through man made noises, like fire alarms & vehicles, natural sounds like dogs barking, people talking things like that should still wake you up though, so maybe choose a natural alarm clock sound.
Creatine may also play a role in increasing sleep especially if stressed, but little research into that side of things, what some would still consider anecdotal.
I was curious about this claim so I tried researching and couldn't find anything. Everybody just seems to look to the same study of Taurine that was done in fruit flies. I didn't see any human studies, let alone interventional studies. Even the idea that you need to consume it didn't pan out -- your body can synthesize it from a couple amino acids and B6. Do you have a source?
Here's a study, not read this one before, but its not hard to find https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4115565/ "The pineal hormone melatonin was also measured in the present and previous study (11), with significantly increased plasma concentrations being observed during sleep deprivation. Increased tryptophan and taurine could explain the increased melatonin levels, as taurine has been shown to increase pineal melatonin by stimulating the activity of its rate limiting biosynthetic enzyme, N-acetyltransferase (42). "
The best I found was this from the European Food Safety Authority
https://efsa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.2903/j.efsa....
The best thing to do would be to follow the natural instinct and juts get some sleep but often that is not possible, in the office for instance.
The word mindfulness gets thrown around a lot but that doesn’t necessarily negate the strength of these studies.
squats, alternating lunges, push-ups / plank, heck just sitting on your knees with an erect spine. Don’t need any equipment