Sleep medicine at PastaTrend: "eat well to sleep better"

With a plate of pasta for dinner, you sleep better. So says Dr Liborio Parrino, vice president of Aims (the Italian Association of Sleep Medicine), since pasta contains slow-release sugars, which allow blood glucose to stay in steady balance. This would therefore be the first step towards undisturbed sleep.

And the figures on this front look worrying, with 1 in 3 Italians having problems linked to the sleep-wake cycle, according to findings already reported at the previous edition of PastaTrend in 2011.

If it is true, as Aristotle maintained, that we sleep because the gases released during digestion warm up and reach the brain, creating the empirical conditions for sleep, it is equally true that the relationship between proper nutrition and good sleep is today a social necessity.

In Parrino's explanation, it is modern society that has changed lifestyles, and these in turn have had a heavy impact on eating habits. "I am thinking of those who wake up in the middle of the night and, despite having eaten a good dinner, absolutely must eat compulsively before going back to bed and falling asleep again. Or of those who suffer from sleepwalking and, in a state of unconsciousness, set the table and indulge in sweets. We are dealing with genuine disorders that have social repercussions — think of the aftermath the next day — as well as health consequences".