Eating while asleep? More than just a love for food, it can be a sleep eating disorder
BY: Frances Villamin
In this generation, the love for food has been intensified and created as a new branch of “foodies.” With our love for food has continued to increase with each new day, it can make us unaware that an excess of food is bad, especially if it’s accompanied with insomnia. There are two types of sleep disorders that are related to eating: sleep-related eating disorder (SRED) and nocturnal eating syndrome (NES). These disorders are more than our late night snacking after a long day of studying or sneaking in middle of the night to get the last bite of the cake.
So what is SRED?
The sleep-related eating disorder is pretty self-explanatory in its name. Basically people with SRED eat while they are asleep! This doesn’t mean their just lazy or have a lack of willpower, this disorder is real and serious. The media portray this order as a comical sight but it can really affect people in continuing their daily lives. Mostly people with SRED sleepwalk into the kitchen and prepare food without even being aware of what they’re doing. Although most of the time, they just prepare what they usually eat during the day but sometimes they can eat strange food combos. Have you ever seen someone eat a fish and brownie together? Well — be prepared to be surprised when you see someone with SRED at night! Sometimes they even eat inedible substances!
Now what is NES?
This is the nocturnal eating syndrome that’s more than just teens on tumblr reblogging posts about food at 3am. It’s a closely related disorder to SRED but the difference is that the person is aware of their eating episodes. Usually someone with NEW has no appetite in the morning but then has an increasingly strong urge to eat after dinner/before sleeping. They have this thought that you need to eat in order to go to back to sleep! The pathophysiology of NES is still being continuously researched but 83% individuals with this disorder has shown recurrent swallowing and chewing movements during NREM sleep in recent studies.
It’s more common than you think!
Studies show that sleep and eating disorders are one of the most misunderstood due to media portrayal! Most T.V. shows nowadays portray night eating as a comical act where one sneaks in to get that last cupcake only to be caught. But it’s a legitimate health problem that can be a life-threatening condition that require diagnosis and treatment. Although both genders can have this disorder, it is typically most common among women, especially around the age 20–40 years old. Almost 65% of those diagnosed are women and more than 40% are overweight. In terms of SRED, the prevalence is nearly 5% of the general population is diagnosed with SRED.
Both SRED and NES is most common with obese individuals. The three share characteristics of:
- poor sleep quality
- multiple types of parasomnias
- poor sleep efficiency
- daytime somnolence
Studies have shown that sleep and eating disorder are more common in obese subjects because nocturnal melatonin levels and the nocturnal rise in leptin were lower in NES subjects. This suggest that dysregulation of these hormones may result in inadequate suppression of appetite, impaired sleep consolidation, and reflect underlying dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Basically this show’s that there are links between eating disturbances (aka-metabolism related disturbances) and sleeping disturbances.
How can we treat it?
Treatment of SRED and NES has been seen to be in a form of combined therapy for weight loss and addiction management. Currently, there is no consolidating treatment for both disorders but studies are in progress. Family and friends tend to place locks on cabinets and refrigerators for individuals who are unaware of their sleep-eating disorders.
Sources:
¹Auger, R. Robert, and Timothy I. Morgenthaler. “Sleep-Related Eating Disorders.” Sleep: A Comprehensive Handbook, 2005, pp. 457–462., doi:10.1002/0471751723.ch59.
²“Sleep & Eating Disorders.” Cleveland Clinic, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/12123-sleep-related-eating-disorders.
³Soares, Maria João, and António Macedo. “Sleep Disturbances, Body Mass Index, and Eating Behavior.” Modulation of Sleep by Obesity, Diabetes, Age, and Diet, 2015, pp. 43–60., doi:10.1016/b978–0–12–420168–2.00006–5.
