Beware! Feeling sleepy after lunch? Your body may have…

In real life, many friends must have started yawning after lunch, and even felt heavy eyelids during lunch. They had no appetite and just wanted to sleep. They clearly wanted to be full of energy after lunch, but the result was this state -

Image source: Internet

Chinese people seem to have always had the habit of taking a nap in the afternoon. Even in school, students have a special nap time after meals. But have you noticed that foreigners don’t seem to have the habit of taking a nap? They are like a wound-up clock, still full of energy in the afternoon. Are they gifted?

Image source: Zhihu

In response to this phenomenon, scholars have proposed a hypothesis through careful analysis and in-depth research: whether mealtime fatigue may be related to the diet of our Chinese people:

The mastermind behind mealtime fatigue: high GI diet

First, let me introduce the pig’s feet (the main character) in the staple food of Chinese people - carbohydrates.

On the Chinese table, rice and noodles occupy the two halves of the staple food respectively. Southerners love to eat rice, while northerners love noodles, the most representative of which is of course steamed buns.

What is GI?

Its Chinese name: glycemic index, which can reflect the ability of a certain food to increase blood sugar concentration.

So what are the unknown secrets between our protagonist and GI?

Studies have shown that tryptophan is a "sleep inducer" and that carbohydrate intake increases tryptophan concentrations in the blood.

After tryptophan enters the brain, it is mysteriously processed by our body and transformed into serotonin, which is a substance necessary for mammals to sleep normally.

Image source: Internet

When we consume high GI foods, the blood sugar concentration in the body rises rapidly, causing the body to secrete a large amount of insulin to lower blood sugar.

An article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that insulin may "escort" tryptophan into the brain.

The secretion of insulin brings various amino acids into cells, while the various amino acids in the blood decrease, increasing the ratio of tryptophan to other large molecular neutral amino acids (LNAA), giving more tryptophan the opportunity to enter the central nervous system.

Image source: Dingxiang Life Research Institute

In short, high GI carbohydrates can increase the tryptophan content in the brain in direct and indirect ways, which may be the reason why we feel "meal sleepiness".

In addition, scholars have also explored and discovered other reasons why we feel sleepy after a meal. For example, as we all know, blood is concentrated in the digestive system after a meal, and the reduced supply to the heart and brain system will cause drowsiness, which involves the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

There is also the phenomenon of "insulin resistance".

In daily diet, consuming too much refined carbohydrates at one time can easily cause a sudden rise in blood sugar, causing the cell insulin receptors to stop receiving insulin, and excessive glucose to accumulate in the blood. At the same time, the pancreas "works hard" to produce more insulin. This vicious cycle overloads the human organs, depriving them of rest, and causing feelings of drowsiness, fatigue, and overdraft. Over time, chronic insulin resistance occurs, and severe cases may even lead to diabetes.

Source: Jiangsu CDC

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