Things that make you throw up in the morning.....

More than a third of adults fail to get the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep each night — and the scarcity of shuteye can have a surprising effect.

Lack of sleep can lead to what some experts refer to as a "silent epidemic" — a condition called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which affects more than one in four American adults, according to the American Heart Association.

Bullshit.

And the worst of it is that Fox states the truth in the next paragraph!

The primary cause is weight gain, along with metabolic risk factors such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high triglycerides and obstructive sleep apnea, according to Ibrahim Hanouneh, a gastroenterologist with MNGI Digestive Health in Minnesota.

Yes, sleep impairment is likely associated with the problem -- but if you want to know where the poor sleep comes from get yourself an HRV monitor and you can prove it in your own person.

I'll tell you what you're going to find:

• Consuming food less than four hours before bedtime.  Your body has to divert energy to digestion no matter what you eat.  You greatly increase the disruption if the thing you consume has carbohydrates or seed oils in it.
  
  
• Consuming seed oils at all.  These are all highly inflammatory.  Period.  Inflammation is bad news on a systemic basis and impairs sleep quality.  You think not?  How well do you sleep after you sprain your ankle, which then gets (temporarily) inflamed?
  
  
• Consuming alcohol.  This is entirely ratable with the amount of consumption.  One beer (or drink) will hit your HRV, two hits it worse and three or more leaves you in a situation where you may as well get hammered.  Now perhaps I'm different than some but I wouldn't bet on it given the number of people I've seen the graphs from.

In addition I will point at statins which are known to cause insulin resistance -- that is, Type II diabetes.  This isn't speculation; it's in the prescribing information and again, insulin resistance precedes Type II diabetes and it impacts sleep quality.

The medical system deliberately ignores a very good high-sensitivity marker they could use -- but you can't on your own.  Specifically, hsCRP and fasting insulin will tell you a great deal about  metabolic health.  Fasting insulin will be high long before you actually get Type II diabetes or even an elevated A1c but it is never tested for routinely.  Unfortunately it is very difficult if not impossible for individuals to run simply because there's no finger-stick or non-invasive test you can obtain for either -- both come with a moderate cost and a blood draw.

But realistically you don't need either.  You can "notch test" any specific food or behavior easily using an HRV monitor as follows:

• Have a baseline (your current behavior) that is reasonably-stable over a period of a week or so.
  
  
• Change one thing consciously and see what change occurs.
  
  
• Reverse the change back to original behavior and see what change occurs.

If the results are inconclusive or there might be something else going on you didn't account for (some ingredient in a food that you didn't think was involved but it is) then repeat the test with a way to exclude that potential confounder.

This costs nothing once you have the hardware and it is conclusive for you and your individual metabolism.

You can also test if you are insulin resistant by simply removing your clothes, standing with your feet, back and shoulders flat against the wall and looking down bending only your neck.  If you cannot see your junk you are insulin resistant.

Oh, and you're also at risk of NAFLD but poor sleep quality isn't the cause, it is one of the effects of the underlying problem.  Solve the problem and your sleep quality will improve at the same time the risk of NAFLD decreases.

Note that the liver it the only organ in the body that can regenerate, so up to a certain point this problem is in fact reversible and thus no, you don't have to live with it and it is not a continually-degenerating condition either -- at least not until the damage gets to be too severe.