When rumination affects cogitation

Raiding the refrigerator in the dead of night for a very late post-prandial snack has been immortalised by the famed fridge forays of the Rubenesque Nigella Lawson in her TV cookery shows. Even if today’s standards demand a slimmer silhouette, midnight munchies have not been regarded as a health hazard, except by weight watchers. But recent research showing that this nocturnal habit may seriously affect memory, too, rather than merely pile on the pounds, puts a different cast on the matter. That the “timing of food may affect cogitation” — as a scientist put it — implies that sustained midnight snacking may put too much of a strain on the brain when the circadian clock (which ticks on regardless of sustenance) decrees it is sleep time.

True, the researchers arrived at their conclusion based on the reactions of laboratory mice eating at the wrong time (for them), which may not mean that humans will react the same way. Anyone who has woken up in the morning wondering how that big packet of chips or tub of ice cream miraculously emptied in the course of the previous night will realise that memory lapses related to late-night eating are not entirely unlikely. Maybe that is another reason why Lawson in her svelte new avatar has also dispensed with the secret bedtime snack segment in her latest TV series.