Eli5: why if you eat before bed your body isn’t more efficient in handling nutrients and use them to repair the body while you sleep?
In: Biology
Your digestive system slows significantly while you sleep—this is why it’s uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night suddenly needing to poop—so if you eat too soon before bed the food is just sitting around in a semi-processed state. If you actually give your body time to process the food before going to sleep, it does exactly as you say.
Take vitamin a for example. You need vitamin d to process a. You only get d naturally from sunlight. You’re not going to get any while sleeping.
What makes you think your body isn’t using nutrients to repair the body while you sleep?
To answer this question you need to realise that for the vast majority of human history we’ve struggled to get enough calories to survive. As a result our systems are optimised for taking every spare calorie and converting it into fat so that the next winter or dry season we didn’t starve to death.
Therefore the “efficient” use of nutrients (in terms of the vast majority of human history) is to store as many as possible and dole them out slowly over a longer period.
Your body will have to lend energy to digestion of whatever it is you’ve eaten, versus if you sleep further from the last time you ate, your body can focus more on recovery and repair. Think of it like trying to download two video games at the same time instead of one.
Who tf told you that?
ELI5: Eating before bed may cause your body to focus on digestion rather than repairing and restoring itself during sleep.
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