Get ready for it.
Sleep deprivation leads to weight gain because people who are sleep deprived eat more.
The study was a small one. 12 men completed a randomized 2-condition crossover study where the conditions involved sleeping for 8 hours or sleeping for 4 hours. Following their sleeps the men were allowed to eat freely and consumption was recorded. Subjects also wore actimeters to measure physical activity and the men were also polled as to feelings of hunger, pleasantness of food, cravings and sensation of sleepiness.
The results?
Total physical activity was effectively the same whether sleep deprived or not and if anything showed a trend towards greater activity in the sleep deprived state. There was no difference in feelings of hunger, perceived pleasantness of food, or cravings. Not even remotely surprisingly, when sleep deprived subjects felt sleepier.
So what difference was found? When sleep deprived people ate a whole lot more. On average they ate 20% more calories the day after a poor night sleep than the day after a good one.
In terms of why this might occur other studies have found the hunger hormone ghrelin to be elevated following sleep deprivation which may explain things physiologically. To explain the physiology the authors speculated to Reuters that perhaps a heightened drive to eat following sleep deprivation would reflect an aim to store calories in the longer days of summer where nights are shorter and food more plentiful, prior to a long, hard, dark winter.
Bottom line?
Sleeping better may help you with your weight management efforts and certainly is something all physicians and allied health professionals should assess in a weight management screen.
Brondel, L., Romer, M., Nougues, P., Touyarou, P., & Davenne, D. (2010). Acute partial sleep deprivation increases food intake in healthy men American Journal of Clinical Nutrition DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.28523
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I've known for a long time I eat more when I'm tired. I've always assumed it's because my body tends to assume "tired = lacking in energy", "food = energy" and therefore "remedy for tired = eat" even though I know intellectually that what I need is more sleep, not more food. But the food tends to be more available than the sleep, so it's hard to resist.
ReplyDeleteFood definitely easier than sleep, especially for moms or dads of young children. It's a wonder new moms lose weight at all if they have babies who do not sleep well.
ReplyDeleteConsider the market in "energy drinks" that may have started with Jolt cola ("all the sugar, twice the caffeine!") in the mid-1980's and which continues through products such as Rockstar and Red Bull today.
ReplyDeleteThese products are predicated on the need to get tasks accomplished when one is in need of sleep -- either because we have a looming deadline or because we have a greater workload then we are physically capable of handling (often part of the stress of trying to hold on to a job, any job, in a market where many once-human-requiring tasks have been automated and where it is cheaper to offshore others to third-world countries with much lower overhead, requiring one constantly proving himself more productive than the equivalent of however-many robots and offshore employees can be procured for the true cost -- salary plus taxes plus benefits plus overhead and so on -- of his labor).
Put bluntly: most people will indulge in sugar, caffeine, or more food in general when their task load requires them to stay awake at a time their body is urging them to sleep.
reading this late, it conflicts with many other more comprehensive studies I have read. Fatigue may slow cognitive function causing choices to be less health oriented and more satisfaction oriented.
ReplyDelete