section_path: Cultural attitudes/Effect on sleep
section_name: Effect on sleep
paragraph_text: Effect on sleep
  
  There is some support from studies that dairy products can help with insomnia. Scientists have debated how cheese might affect sleep. A folk belief that cheese eaten close to bedtime can cause nightmares may have arisen from the Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol, in which Ebenezer Scrooge attributes his visions of Jacob Marley to the cheese he ate. This belief can also be found in folklore that predates this story. The theory has been disproven multiple times, although night cheese may cause vivid dreams or otherwise disrupt sleep due to its high saturated fat content, according to studies by the British Cheese Board. Other studies indicate it may actually make people dream less.