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Anyone who's ever played Super Mario Brothers knows consuming things can have a drastic impact on you. That rule can apply to real life, too. So, with that in mind, what impact does kiwi fruit have on your peaceful slumber? 

Recently a team of researchers shared some interesting results about how the kiwi fruit may impact sleep. For this study, these scientists divided 24 men with varying sleep quality into three groups. The first group got the flesh of two fresh kiwi fruits with their evening dinner. The second group got two fruits worth of dried up powdered kiwi with their evening meal. And the last group, the control group, had just water with their evening meal and ate no kiwis at all. Then these subjects were studied three times, separated by 6-to-8 days.

Here’s what these researchers observed at the end of all that eating and sleeping. The fresh kiwi and dried powder kiwi people slept better than the water-control group. They also had a better mood in the morning upon waking and their urine showed higher levels of serotonin and melatonin metabolite concentrations. A quick neuro-chemistry reminder: melatonin is the brain chemical that helps us sleep and serotonin is the brain chemical that helps us become awake and alert after all that sleep. 

Overall, the kiwi fruit consumption appeared to have a positive impact on sleep. But one particular aspect of this study now leads to even more questions. The subjects who were poor sleepers reported a 24% improvement in ease of waking up after the dried powdered kiwi fruit consumption and the poor sleepers who got fresh kiwi even reported a 13% improvement. 

What's going on here? Why did the dried powdered kiwi fruit make more of an impact on the poor sleepers over those who ate fresh kiwi? This could require studying other biomarkers like urine, plasma and saliva. Regardless, this small study is another great reminder that there’s still much more left to know about the relationship between our bodies and the many foods found throughout this planet! 

Stay tuned as more research continues in the delicious world of science, but for now consider this as some food for thought.