Eating for Better Sleep & Foods that Improve Metabolic Health | Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge
Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge discusses her research on the bidirectional relationship between sleep and nutrition, revealing how sleep deprivation alters hunger hormones differently in men and women, and how dietary choices like fiber intake and saturated fat consumption directly impact sleep quality. Her lab studies demonstrate that even modest, sustained sleep restriction leads to measurable metabolic consequences including insulin resistance and elevated blood pressure. The conversation also covers meal timing, specific functional foods, and the broader landscape of nutrition research.
Summary
Dr. Marie-Pierre St-Onge, a professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University, joins Andrew Huberman to discuss the bidirectional relationship between sleep and food. The conversation begins with population-based evidence showing that short sleepers have higher BMI and greater weight gain over time, including a notable nurse's health study tracking participants over 14 years. St-Onge's own controlled laboratory research revealed that severe sleep restriction (four hours per night for five nights) caused men to exhibit increased ghrelin levels — the hunger-triggering hormone — while women showed reduced GLP-1, the satiety hormone, leading both groups to consume approximately 300 more calories per day. Neuroimaging from the same study showed upregulation in brain reward centers under sleep restriction conditions.
Surprisingly, cortisol levels and glucose/insulin markers were not altered in the severe, short-term sleep restriction study, suggesting that metabolic dysfunction emerges from the combination of poor sleep and the downstream behavioral changes it induces — particularly altered food choices and reduced spontaneous physical activity. A follow-up study using milder but sustained sleep restriction (six weeks of six-hour nights in free-living conditions) did produce measurable increases in insulin resistance and blood pressure, particularly in postmenopausal women, confirming that cardiometabolic risk accumulates under real-world conditions.
The discussion shifts to how diet affects sleep quality. St-Onge's analysis of data from controlled inpatient studies found that higher fiber intake was associated with more slow-wave (deep) sleep, while higher saturated fat intake reduced deep sleep, and refined carbohydrates and simple sugars increased sleep arousals — transitions from deeper to lighter sleep stages. When participants self-selected their food in the lab versus eating a controlled diet, they took over 70% longer to fall asleep and had approximately 20% less slow-wave sleep. St-Onge personally maintains a three-hour buffer between her last meal and bedtime, citing the thermic effect of food raising body temperature as a key reason.
On meal timing, St-Onge describes a controlled study showing that eating the same foods in a ten-hour window starting one hour after waking versus five hours after waking resulted in less fat oxidation in the later-eating condition. She recommends concentrating caloric intake in the first two-thirds of the waking day, aligning with findings from Mediterranean diet and DASH diet cohort studies showing associations with better sleep quality and reduced insomnia symptoms.
The conversation covers several specific foods and nutrients St-Onge has studied. Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) increased the thermic effect of food by approximately 45-60 calories per meal and, in a weight-loss context, produced greater fat mass reduction compared to olive oil. Ginger was found to significantly elevate the thermic effect of food through what researchers believe is a capsaicin receptor mechanism. A study on coffee manno-oligosaccharides found significant effects on body composition in men but not women, leading the sponsoring company to abandon the product. A Frito-Lay-sponsored study found that corn oil-fried chips improved lipid profiles compared to low-fat and high-saturated-fat snack alternatives.
Sex differences in sleep are discussed, with women reporting more insomnia symptoms despite sleeping slightly longer than men on average, and women showing greater sensitivity to sleep apnea's impact on blood pressure at lower apnea thresholds. The importance of clinicians asking open-ended sleep quality questions rather than only asking about sleep duration is emphasized.
The episode addresses industry-funded nutrition research, with St-Onge defending the integrity of such work by noting that publication rights are contractually protected, null results occur in both industry- and NIH-funded research, and scientific misconduct is not exclusive to industry-sponsored studies. She also discusses the difficulty of publishing null results and how this represents a systemic problem in nutrition science broadly. The conversation concludes with a call for whole-food diets, earlier meal timing, adequate sleep, and the recognition that sleep and nutrition form a self-reinforcing cycle — either healthful or vicious — depending on one's choices.
Key Insights
- St-Onge's lab found that sleep restriction affects hunger hormones differently by sex: men showed increased ghrelin while women showed reduced GLP-1, but prior studies had only been conducted in men, which is why the sex difference had been missed.
- In a controlled five-night study of four-hour sleep restriction, cortisol levels and glucose/insulin markers were completely unaffected, suggesting that cardiometabolic dysfunction from poor sleep requires the compounding effects of real-world behavioral changes like altered food choices.
- When participants self-selected their food after sleep restriction, they consumed approximately 300 more calories per day, fell asleep over 70% more slowly, and had about 20% less slow-wave sleep compared to when eating a controlled diet.
- St-Onge's inpatient study found that higher fiber intake on a given day was associated with more deep sleep that night, higher saturated fat intake was associated with less deep sleep, and more refined carbohydrates and simple sugars were associated with more sleep arousals.
- A six-week mild sleep restriction study (six hours per night in free-living conditions) produced measurable increases in insulin resistance and blood pressure, with postmenopausal women showing worse outcomes than premenopausal women.
- Eating the same foods in a ten-hour window beginning five hours after waking versus one hour after waking resulted in reduced fat oxidation, supporting the view that meal timing — not just composition — affects metabolism.
- MCT oil increased the thermic effect of food by approximately 45-60 calories per meal compared to standard fat, and in a weight-loss study produced greater fat mass reduction compared to olive oil, though the effect on overall weight is modest.
- Ginger dissolved in warm water significantly elevated the thermic effect of food over a four-to-five-hour measurement period, an effect St-Onge attributes to the capsaicin receptor pathway.
- A meta-analysis cited by St-Onge found that sleep restriction leads to 250-400 excess calories consumed per day, and a 2022 study showed participants gained approximately half a kilogram in just two weeks from sleeping five versus seven-and-a-half hours nightly.
- St-Onge argues that industry-sponsored nutrition research does not inherently bias outcomes, noting that contractual publication rights are standard and that null results from industry-funded studies face the same publication barriers as any null result.
- Women report more insomnia and sleep difficulty than men across the adult lifespan despite sleeping slightly longer, and show greater cardiometabolic sensitivity to poor sleep — for instance, experiencing elevated blood pressure at lower thresholds of sleep apnea severity than men.
- St-Onge found that in a large women's cohort study, adherence to the Mediterranean or DASH diet at baseline was associated with lower likelihood of developing or maintaining insomnia symptoms at three-year follow-up, even after adjusting for multiple confounders.
Topics
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to Access