If You Eat Too Late At Night Does Your Body Repair Stop

My friend at Anti-Aging Games, Elizabeth Amini had a another question for me:

Is it true that your body repairs one organ at a time every hour at night and if you eat late, your body chooses to focus on digestion instead of repairs during that time period and whatever organ is supposed to be repaired isn't during that time?  It seems suspicious that the body works on an arbitrary time slot that humans sliced up the day by.  I've heard it from both Eastern and Western doctors.

Answer to first part of question:

The body in all its tissues (and its organ units) is in continual repair, night and day. The extent of repair and who is getting the most attention will vary with the extent of damage, exhaustion or use of that specific tissue or organ. All of the processes of repair will depend on the signals emanating from the tissues (organs) signaling the need. This will be in the form of chemicals (such as lactic acid or substance P for example), or neurologic signals. Other factors are the availability of the building blocks (such as amino acids), assisting substances (such as vitamin C), energy hormones (such as growth hormone), building hormones (again such as growth hormone), fuel for energy (fatty acids) and appropriate surrounding temperature. A major factor is whether or not that tissue is being involved in full scale repair or not is if said tissue is in use or not. When the tissue is active then the amount of repair is less and vice versa.

Since most tissues and organs are less active when a person is sleeping, then a large part of repair of all tissues will occur during the person’s sleep cycle. In addition, there is escalation of growth hormone secretion when the eyes are closed (especially in adults), which is a major player in repair. Therefore, sleep truly is ‘renovation time’.

The premise that the ‘body repairs one organ at a time every hour at night’, to me is without scientific basis and I don't think that any one organ has a specific hour to be repaired in. It is a continuous process.

Answer to second part of question:

By eating late the repair of the gastrointestinal tract is probably delayed because of it being busy with digestion and absorption. Some of the energy resources required for the digestion and absorption which would otherwise be dedicated to repair or replenishment may be diverted away from the repair arena. This would especially be true if the meal size is large. To what extent this occurs isn't known to me, but I seriously doubt that it is as absolute as described in the question. As such it is my conviction that it is healthier to have frequent small meals instead of large ones to have a continuous low drain on energy resources needed for repair, while at the same time having a continuous influx of building blocks and energy resources. This concept, along with exercise, is capitalized upon (knowingly or otherwise), by Bill Phillips, in his strategy for getting healthy in his book, Body-for-LIFE: 12 Weeks to Mental and Physical Strength (1999). So I would say it is okay to eat late as long as the meal size is small.