Many diets recommend that a dieter not eat for 3-4 hours before going to sleep. Supposedly, this is because the metabolism slows down while a person is resting, and the food will have a greater chance of turning to fat.
What are the reasons why eating before bed is not recommended? Why should it matter if a person consumes 800 calories at 4:00 PM, or 9:00 PM? They are still taking in the same amount of calories, and they are still dropping their metabolism by going to sleep.
Its obvious that a persons basal metabolism will drop when they are sleeping, but what about a persons digestive metabolism. Will a sleeping person digest food more slowly than an awake, active person? Will food tend to linger in the digestive tract longer in a sleeping person?