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 PM. 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) but did not affect HRV parameters (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.

中文翻译：

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深夜进食容易或缓慢消化的食物对健康年轻男性睡眠、下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴和自主神经系统的影响

本研究的目的是评估深夜高热量膳食的消化率对健康年轻男性睡眠以及下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺 (HPA) 和自主神经系统 (ANS) 活动的影响。为此，在 16 名参与者的交叉设计中研究了易于消化的膳食（淀粉 + 富含糖的膳食，SSR，即甜点）或缓慢消化的膳食（蛋白质 + 富含脂肪，PFR，即烤肉串）的影响（20-26 岁）。他们在第 0 天晚上 7:00 之后没有吃任何东西；第 1 天吃了 SSR 餐，第 2 天晚上 10:00 吃了 PFR 餐。HPA 和 ANS 活动分别通过皮质醇觉醒反应 (CAR) 和心率变异性 (HRV) 测量。参与者为CAR提供了唾液样本；对 HRV 进行了 5 分钟的连续心电图记录；并填写睡眠问卷。深夜进食 SSR 和 PFR 饮食增加了 CAR 曲线下面积（p  < 0.05) 但不影响 HRV 参数 ( p  > 0.05)。PFR 餐显着扰乱睡眠（p  < 0.05）。数据表明，HPA 活性的增加，但不是 ANS，可能与深夜进食的病理生理学有关，这可能是由于如果缓慢食用可消化的食物会扰乱睡眠。