Dubai: Do you have the habit of delaying or skipping meals during the day and consuming most of your daily intake at night? Has this affected your sleep and mood patterns? If the answer is yes, then you might be suffering from Night Eating Syndrome (NES).
Medical experts characterise NES by morning anorexia, evening hyperphagia (overeating) and insomnia (sleeplessness). The person suffering lacks the appetite for breakfast; eats more than half of the daily food after dinner but before breakfast; has trouble falling and or staying asleep and often eats when they can't sleep. NES is thought to be stress related or hereditary and the foods eaten are mostly carbohydrates.
Although Gulf News readers said they believed they were not suffering from the syndrome, many of them agreed that they were experiencing some of its symptoms.
Chacko Jacob, an Indian expatriate, said: "I snack at night but my sleep is not always affected by hunger. If I wake up, I mostly eat sweets in low quantities, in order to change the taste, when I wake up."
He added that he rarely eats breakfast. However, since Jacob, who weighs 95kg, started exercising, he said he has not woken up during the night.
Joel Garcia, a Sharjah resident from the Philippines, said that he craves for sandwiches and chips along with soda or coffee during the night. If these items are not available, Garcia, who works in an engineering consultancy, said he cooks chocolate porridge. When asked whether he consumes such snacks in large quantities, he said: "I don't stop until I burp. As far as I know, I have not reached the level of gluttony."
For breakfast, Garcia said he drinks not more than two cups of coffee but doesn't skip lunch and dinner. He said he believes that his habit of waking up at night to snack is related to stress. "It all began when I started working in a stressful environment. Now it has become habitual. If I don't have my midnight snack, I feel irritatingly uneasy," he said.
Berik Askarbayev, 26, from Kazakhstan, eats three evening meals.
"I eat supper at 6pm and dinner at 10pm and 1am. I eat whatever is available. If I don't have a good dinner, I wake up in the middle of the night and eat something sweet so that I can sleep well," Askarbayev said. He weighs 76kg.
A study conducted by the Weight and Eating Disorders programme at the American University of Pennsylvania, revealed that night eaters ate more and consumed significantly more of their daily energy intake at night as compared to regular people.
Furthermore, their mood fell gradually after 4pm and their nightly awakenings averaged 3.6 times per night. In night eaters, 52 per cent of these awakenings were associated with hunger.
Another study - conducted by the Clinical Research Department and the Laboratory of Gastroenterology of the University Hospital in Tromso, Norway, to determine the biochemical triggers that causes such patterns - partly associated this syndrome with hormonal imbalances.
The findings revealed that night eaters had significantly lower melatonin levels, which should normally be higher to help regulate the sleep/wake cycle.
Leptin, the hunger hormone, which rises at night to suppress appetite, was also lower in the night eaters, partly explaining their nocturnal food cravings.
In addition, cortisol, the stress hormone that rises when one is feeling tense was higher at night in the NES patients, perhaps further enticing them to leave bed and head to the kitchen.
How to prevent NES?
Educating patients about their conditions, so they are more aware of their eating patterns
Help people identify triggers that influence their eating habits
Work at reducing stress levels
Encourage people to have three meals, including breakfast
Avoid sugary foods as morning meals
Realise that boredom and prolonged dieting can induce NES in people. Also avoid long spells of dieting
By Syed Bilal Shafi
© Gulf News 2009
