By Yasuhiro Fujiwara MD, PhD, Ai Machida MD, PhD, Yoko Watanabe MD, PhD, Masatsugu Shiba MD, PhD, Kazunari Tominaga MD, PhD, Toshio Watanabe MD, PhD, Nobuhide Oshitani MD, PhD, Kazuhide Higuchi MD, PhD and Tetsuo Arakawa MD, DMSc, FACG

From The American Journal of Gastroenterology
2005:100:2633-2636

Reported from Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Dec 27 – A shorter dinner-to-bed time interval is significantly associated with an increased risk of gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to researchers in Japan.

“It is generally recommended that patients with GERD refrain from eating within 3h of going to sleep,” Dr. Yasuhiro Fujiwara and colleagues from Osaka City University write in the December issue of the American Journal of Gastroenterology. “In addition to a remarkable lack of supporting clinical evidence, whether GERD patients have shorter dinner-to-bed time is unknown.”

In a matched case-control study, the researchers examined the association between dinner-to-bed time and GERD. A total of 147 GERD patients and 294 matched controls without GERD symptoms during the previous year were included in the study. A self-report questionnaire was used to assess the time intervals between finishing dinner and going to bed.

A significant association was observed between shorter dinner-to-bed time and an increased risk of GERD (p < 0.0001). Compared with patients whose dinner-to-bed time was 4h or longer, those whose dinner-to-bed time was shorter than 3 h had an odds ratio for GERD of 7.45 after adjustment for smoking status, drinking habits, and body mass index.

Dinner-to-bed time did not differ significantly between the 38 patients with nonerosive GERD and the109 with erosive esophagitis.

However, “shorter dinner-to-bed time was significantly associated with an increased odds ratio of both nonerosive GERD and erosive esophagitis, and the odds ratio for patients whose dinner-to-bed time was less than 3 h was 5.86 in patients with nonerosive GERD and 8.05 in patients with erosive esophagitis compared with patients with an interval of 4 h or more in a multiple adjusted model,” Dr. Fujiwara’s team notes.

Based on these findings, the researchers say the next step will be to examine if going to bed less than 3 h after eating can reduce or improve symptoms in GERD patients.

Reuters Health Information 2005. © 2005 Reuters Ltd.