Sleep and the gastrointestinal tract

Recent advances in the study of sleep have elucidated marked alterations in respiratory and hormonal functioning during sleep, and major health consequences attributable to sleep restriction or deprivation. These discoveries have led to a remarkable broadening of the focus and importance of the applications of basic sleep physiology to many areas of clinical medicine. Lagging somewhat behind these developments is the description of gastrointestinal (GI) functioning during sleep and possible applications of these changes to clinical medicine. Perhaps the most obvious reason for this is the relative inaccessibility of the GI tract to easy study during sleep. As a result of advances in measurement techniques, there has been a marked increase in studies describing alterations in GI functioning during sleep and the specific applications of these changes to the practice of gastroenterology.