The habit to sleep after dinner become trend now but you should wait 1-2 hours because the risk of stroke will be increased if the lag time between meals with sleeping is too close.
Give time for the stomach about 60-70 minutes to digest food is claimed to reduce the risk of stroke by 66 percent and will decrease if the gap is longer. Any increase in the gap for 20 minutes, the risk is reduced by 10 percent.
But the pauses are too long will not make the risk of stroke is lost altogether, because the maximum limit is said to only 2 hours or 120 minutes. It's OK to wait more than 2 hours before bedtime, but not guaranteed benefits will continue to rise.
Cristina-Maria Kastorini, MSc, nutritionist at the University of Ioannina in Greece said that if someone went to bed immediately after dinner, then that person is susceptible to gastric acid reflux. This condition causes stomach acids up into the esophagus and lead to discomfort.
At bedtime, reflux may trigger airway constriction and thus prone to sleep apnea stop breathing during sleep. Although not directly lead to stroke, various studies have shown that sleep apnea is associated with the risk of damage to blood vessels in the brain that trigger a stroke.
The results presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2011 will involve at least 1,000 Britons. A total of 500 people from the healthy participants, 250 people had a stroke and the remaining 250 people experiencing acute coronary heart syndrome.
Meanwhile, a cardiologist from the Mayo Clinic, David Holmes, MD, agrees that go straight to bed after dinner can increase the risk of stroke. But for sure, need further research with larger sample size.
"When we eat, blood sugar levels change, cholesterol changes and blood flow changes as well. All of that affects the risk of stroke," said Dr. Holmes who was not involved in the study.