When Do GERD Patients Go to Bed?

Compared with people who don’t have GERD, GERD patients have shorter intervals between dinner and bedtime.

Few evidence-based data justify the standard dictum of dietary and mechanical measures for patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). In general, patients are told to refrain from eating for 3 hours before bedtime. To evaluate the interval between dinnertime and bedtime, researchers in Japan surveyed 147 patients with GERD symptoms and 294 healthy adults (matched for age and sex) without GERD symptoms.

Among GERD patients, 74% had evidence of erosive esophagitis, and 26% had nonerosive reflux disease (NERD). Mean dinnertime-to-bedtime intervals were significantly shorter in patients with GERD than in those without GERD. After adjustment for smoking, drinking, and body-mass index, the adjusted odds ratio of having GERD for patients…

Reviewing Author

David A. Johnson, MD