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Protein and salt cause ‘food coma’ and heavy-eyes – New study

Commonly, people slump and experience heavy-eye after lunch which is as a result of protein and salt. In a first of its kind research by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), human system appears to paralyze other functions to increase gut absorption of these vital nutrients.

High consumption will always attract ‘food coma’ which is mostly in snack bars, smoothies, salads, and sandwiches at the eatery or on the street.

According to the lead researcher, Dr. William Ja, “The protein link to post-meal sleep has been mostly anecdotal, too, so to have it turn up in the study was remarkable. Different foods play different roles in mammalian physiology, but there have been very few studies on the immediate effects of eating on sleep.”

Before now, there has been little unreliable confirmation to give insight that ‘food coma’ is an actual physical condition, and the scientific proof that exist is unable to explain why some people fall asleep immediately after eating, some later and others  don’t feel anything.

The research examined documentation of fruit flies on sleeping metabolism system which suppresses sleep or increase locomotion when hungry. They monitor flies performance before and after feeding. “The result shows that after a meal, flies increased sleep for a short period before returning to a normal state of wakefulness. Flies that ate more, slept more,” according to the researchers.

“In humans, high sugar consumption provides a quick boost to blood glucose followed by a crash, so its effect on sleep might only be observed beyond the 20 to 40 minute food coma window. We also found that protein, salt and the amount eaten promoted sleep.

“Using an animal model, we’ve learned there is something to the food coma effect, and we can now start to study the direct relationship between food and sleep in earnest. This behavior seems conserved across species, so it must be valuable to animals for some reason,” Dr. Ja said.

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