One to two hours after eating dinner at 6:30 in the evening, Bob and Amy Gerahty used to come down with acid indigestion. Although they didn't go to bed until 11:00 P.M., the symptoms lingered, preventing them from getting to sleep. They blamed their indigestion and insomnia on the food they ate for dinner. Their typical evening meal consisted of red meat, mashed potatoes with butter, salad, and a vegetable. Having heard so much about the harm a diet heavy in red meat and saturated fat can do to the heart and arteries, they became convinced that the food they had for dinner was at the root of their digestive problems. So they switched to chicken, fish, and polyunsaturated oils, but it didn't ease their indigestion. No matter what they ate for dinner they got acid reflux afterward. The years passed and they continued to lie awake at night with painful esophageal and stomach problems.

Finally it dawned on Amy that because they could eat just about anything for breakfast and lunch without experiencing any indigestion, maybe it wasn't what they ate for dinner but what time they had dinner that was the cause of their indigestion. So she moved their dinner back three and a half hours to three o'clock in the afternoon. They haven't had acid reflux since; their weight problems have also vanished.

Why is it that Bob and Amy have no trouble digesting a big dinner in the middle of the afternoon, but the same meal eaten three and a half hours later at 6:30 P.M. gave them indigestion? This is not unusual. Acid indigestion is far more common in the evening after dinner than at any other time of the day. It is quite likely that the cause is depressed energy levels. This is nature's way of preparing the body for sleep. With less than normal energy, fewer digestive enzymes are generated. The result is that in some individuals, the evening meal remains undigested and gives rise to a whole range of symptoms -- including the most common, acid reflux. Amy and Bob have no gastric problems now that they eat their last meal of the day in the midafternoon, because it falls within the time period -- between ten in the morning and five thirty in the afternoon -- when the body's energy level is highest, indicated by a body temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When energy production in the body goes up, more digestive enzymes are produced.

Amy and Bob's story points out the fact that for many individuals food is more easily digested at lunchtime than at any other time of the day. If you want to continue eating foods that you are allergic or sensitive to, you're less likely to react to them between twelve and three o'clock in the afternoon. This is when the thyroid is at its most active and enzyme levels are highest. Enzyme levels are low in the morning because thyroid function is sluggish then, and they level off in the evening when thyroid function again begins to slow down.

"If you want to continue eating foods that you are allergic or sensitive to, you're less likely to react to them between twelve and three o'clock in the afternoon."

If it were possible for everyone to eat the last meal at three o'clock in the afternoon -- which amounts to a partial fast -- many health problems, including obesity, would disappear. I recommended to an elderly couple, both of whom were very ill with cancer, that they have dinner in midafternoon and not eat anything else for the rest of the day. Although at the time I made the recommendation their doctor had told them that neither would live more than one year, they are still alive and enjoying life -- ten years after they began eating dinner at three o'clock in the afternoon.

An offense to good health is eating badly at dinner, but even worse is eating unhealthy snacks late at night. Not only have digestive enzyme and thyroid function slowed to a crawl by then, when you sleep they slow down even more. People are most likely to get acid indigestion in the evening because at the end of the day hydrochloric acid, bile, and enzyme levels fall.

Remember, high acid waste levels in the body lead to weight gain. That's one good reason why liquids that become acidic in the digestive tract shouldn't be drunk in the morning on an empty stomach. Even if coffee and/or tea don't give you acid reflux, don't drink them before breakfast. When there is no food in the stomach, coffee and tea acidify. On the other hand, the best time of the day to eat fruit or drink fruit juice is in the morning when the stomach is empty, because fruit has an alkalinizing effect when the stomach is empty. When fruit is eaten later in the day when the stomach is full, it has an acidifying effect.

an excerpt from the book Eat Right for Your Metabolism
by Felicia Drury Kliment
Published by McGraw-Hill; April 2006;$16.95US/$22.95CAN; 0-07-146015-2
Copyright 2006 Felicia Drury Klimentt