High Carbohydrate Diets may Contribute to Insomnia

by | Jan 24, 2020 | 2019, Brain Health, Newsletter, Sleep, Women's Health

Written by Joyce Smith, BS. This study suggest that a diet of high-glycemic index foods could be a risk factor for insomnia in postmenopausal women.

Insomnia plays a critical role in our lives in that it can affect our work productivity and quality of life, increase our accident risk, and have high financial consequences 1. Annual cost of sleep loss due to medical costs, accidents, and depression and alcohol abuse was estimated at $150-175 billion in 2016 2 Insomnia is often treated with cognitive therapy or medication; however, can be time consuming and expensive and have side effects 3. Previous studies have explored a potential link between refined carbohydrates and insomnia but were unable to establish whether a diet high in refined carbs triggered the onset of insomnia or whether insomnia encouraged indulgence in sweets 4. This bidirectional relationship prompted Gangwisch and colleagues to explore a potential association between diet and insomnia.

Using data from the postmenopausal women who participated in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Observational study of postmenopausal women, the research team 5 explored the association between dietary glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load and insomnia. They used baseline data from completed food diaries of 77,860 participants between 1994 and 1998 as well as after a 3-year follow-up (1997 to 2001) of 53,069 participants to determine whether a higher dietary GI contributed to insomnia. The GI ranks foods on a scale from 1 to 100 based on their effect on blood-sugar levels. Highly refined carbohydrates such as added sugars, white bread, white rice, and soda have a higher GI and cause a more rapid increase or spike in blood sugar 6. These high GI foods increase insulin secretion 7 and cause a resulting blood sugar drop that can lead to the release of hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, both of which can interfere with sleep 8. Gangwisch and team hypothesized that these rapid spikes and drops in blood sugar after eating refined carbs may trigger insomnia.

After adjusting for demographic, behavioral, lifestyle, psychosocial, and medical factors, cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis revealed that higher dietary GI was associated with increasing odds of developing insomnia (P-trend<0.0001). The higher the GI, particularly when fueled by higher dietary intakes of added sugars, starch, and processed grains, the greater the risk of developing insomnia. By contrast, women who consumed higher nonjuice fruit and vegetables had a significantly lower risk of insomnia. A diet higher in dietary fiber, whole (nonrefined) grains, nonjuice fruit, and vegetables was also significantly associated with a decreased risk of insomnia. While whole fruits contain sugar they also contain fiber which slows their rate of absorption, thus helping to prevent blood sugar spikes.

Study limitations include a potential food recall bias. Also, the exact nutrient content of food was not analytically measured. Sleep deprivation from insomnia may have induced carb cravings, causing a reverse causation which could have impacted study results. In addition, food habits from 1994-2001 may not reflect the eating habits of today’s society. Finally, the use of a postmenopausal study sample did not allow for generalization of results to other populations.

The authors stress the need for randomized controlled trials to further validate an association between dietary patterns and the development of insomnia.

Source: Gangwisch, James E., Lauren Hale, Marie-Pierre St-Onge, Lydia Choi, Erin S. LeBlanc, Dolores Malaspina, Mark G. Opler et al. “High glycemic index and glycemic load diets as risk factors for insomnia: analyses from the Women’s Health Initiative.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2019).

© The Author(s) 2019.

Posted January 24, 2020.

Joyce Smith, BS, is a degreed laboratory technologist. She received her bachelor of arts with a major in Chemistry and a minor in Biology from  the University of Saskatchewan and her internship through the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine and the Royal University Hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She currently resides in Bloomingdale, IL.

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