Dr. Ali Herr

speaker

113 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 24 Jun

Dr. Ali Herr’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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The Food Chain · What to eat for a better night's sleep · 24 Jun 2026 podcast

So it's good for your microbiome.

There's some good research showing it's good for your cardiovascular health in, again, reasonable doses.

So definitely not something I'd advise you having last thing at night.

But I don't think it needs to be the enemy and I think consumed in a sensible way.

at sensible doses at sensible times of day, we shouldn't see it as the absolute enemy of sleep or indeed broader health.

Well, now that one, unfortunately, to share with listeners, is an enemy of sleep.

So alcohol increases arousals from sleep, so it disrupts the sleep.

It really impacts on your REM sleeps.

That's the type of sleep where primarily you're doing things like laying down memory and associating memory with already formed memories.

It's a really important sleep stage.

And I think what we know now is that there isn't really a safe dose of alcohol either in terms of long-term health impacts.

So, you know, again, I think, as Marie-Pierre said, you know, one has to take individual decisions about this.

And it is often part of, at least in the West, the way in which we socialise and the way in which we develop and form relationships.

And again, there's some lovely research looking at loneliness and sleep and other health measures.

So there has to be a balance.

But yes, unfortunately, alcohol and sleep are not friends.

We generally recommend not having a heavy meal in the two or three hours before bedtime.

And that's largely just around your body's not really designed to do digestion at the same time it's sleeping.

But there has to be some pragmatism as well.

So I think there's no point giving individuals advice that is simply not sustainable as a long-term health strategy.

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