I would like to thank Nonogaki et al. (1) for their interesting findings regarding intervals between dinner and bedtime in Japanese subjects. I am curious to see a follow-up to this work with a larger sample size. I would ask the authors if there is a correlation between this pattern of eating and adverse diabetes outcomes. Any medical comorbidities in these studied patient populations should also be controlled, as they can confound the findings. There may be other factors associated with the decreased time between dinner and bedtime. For example, decreased energy often associated with diabetes and other chronic medical illnesses may be a possible reason for the shorter interval between dinner consumption and bedtime in diabetic, pre-diabetic, and obese patients.

1.
Nonogaki K, Tateishi K, Nonogaki N: Isn't This Just Snacking? The potential adverse effects of night-eating symptoms on treatment adherence and outcomes in patients with diabetes (Letter).
Diabetes Care
30
:
e38
,
2007
. DOI: 10.2337/;dc06-2628