18 replies to this topic

[Godeskian]

http://news.bbc.co.u...lth/4073897.stm

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A reduction in the time people spend asleep could partly account for soaring obesity rates, a study has revealed.
Researchers at the University of Bristol have found that hormonal changes caused by lack of sleep could lead to increased appetite.

The population-based study examined more than 1,000 volunteers.

Report author Dr Shahrad Taheri said: "Individuals who spent less than eight hours sleeping were shown to have a greater likelihood of being heavier."

Quote

The research, carried out in conjunction with US scientists, is one of three published in recent weeks to produce similar results.

It found that people who habitually slept for five hours had 15% more ghrelin, a hormone which increases feelings of hunger, than those who slept for eight hours.

Those who slept for less time were also found to have 15% less leptin, a hormone which suppresses appetite.

"These differences are likely to increase appetite and, in societies where food is readily available, this may contribute to obesity," Dr Taheri said.

"It is important for people to realise there is more to obesity than just stuffing your face."

Quote

The results of the study were replicated in a second piece of research, led by the University of Chicago.

This study found people who slept for only four hours a night for twonights had an 18% reduction in leptin, anda 28% increase in ghrelin.

The young men in the study also tended to eat more sweet and starchy foods when sleep was cut short.

A third recent study, by Columbia University, also found found people who slept four hours or less per night were 73% more likely to be obese.

Thoughts?

[Lord of the Sword]

So if a person sleeps 12 hours, or more, a day they should be skinny? Hmmm, think I'll go to bed now. Wake me in 24hours...lol.

Seriously, I do find this study interesting. Perhaps that's why new parents seem to gain weight. Waking up every couple of hours to feed the baby.

[Shalamar]

I have head it said time and again by healers -

"Sleep is food"

[GoldenCoal]

Hmm, it's not clear to me how these experiments were run. If they just asked people how much they usually sleep, or keep track of how much someone sleeps, then the research is correlational only and could just mean that hungry people sleep less.

But if they took a random sample, and forced people to sleep a certain amount, then this would be more credible.

But, like most news of this nature, the details are skimmed off.

[Morrhigan]

I sleep so much, Hambil nicknamed me Koala Bear. Does this mean I'd eat even more if I slept less?

[Vapor Trails]

I average 4 1/2-5 hours sleep a night. On rare occasions, 6 hours.  

At one point I was getting way too heavy-but I've increased my cycling and cut down on eating. I've lost weight.

Unfortunately, my days are rather jam-packed and stressful.

:pout:

[DWF]

I have trouble sleeping more than 6 hours a night myself and my sleep doctor is always telling me to get more sleep and of course to lose weight, which should help out overall, but my bladder won't allow me to get too much sleep and of course my urologist wants me to go to the bathroom more often.  

[Lyric of Delphi]

I don't know about that. I think I've become...slightly emaciated of late, with my all-nighters and whatnot. Of course, I'm not eating very well lately, either. That could be part of it.

[sierraleone]

The study doesn't say much. It could mean people who put more emphasis on eating and living well include healthly amounts of sleep w/ that.

[emsparks]

In a primitive society and in many farming communities’ even today, people have little to do when the sun is not up. So their bodies rest and have ample time to convert the ingested animal fats in to glucose.

When the body is awake longer then it should be it looks for other food sources to get the needed sugar, the glucose, faster. Starches and good old sucrose are compounds that can be converted to glucose, much faster then the ingested and stored, animal fat. The body having evolved over extended periods of famine has learned to store the excess animal fat it gets, for leaner times. So the combination of a 24-hour society, and all kinds of foods in super abundance, results in obese populations. Which by the way is just one of nature’s ways to limit the population in time of plenty, given that obese people are susceptible to a whole host of fatal illness’.

I am not a partygoer; I suffer sleep apnea, to the rate of stopping breathing 100 times a night, and am awake about every hour. I have suffered this all my life and since age seven have been over weight. I now have colon cancer, a disease linked to obesity, which I am. If the cancer does not kill me, the obesity will.

[DWF]

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I suffer sleep apnea, to the rate of stopping breathing 100 times a night, and am awake about every hour. I have suffered this all my life and since age seven have been over weight.

You should see a sleep doctor and get either a Bi/PAP or CPAP machine, I use one anbd I get a full night's sleep and your breathing won't stop.

[emsparks]

^^^
Been there done that. I cannot sleep without my CPAP machine, and my breathing still stops. I’m still awake almost every 45 minutes or an hour, with the CPAP machine.

Edited by emsparks, 17 December 2004 - 07:04 PM.

[DWF]

^^^Sorry to hear about that, maybe it needs a higher adjustment.  

[Chakotay]

What this survey says to me is not that obese people are that way because they don't sleep much, but that people who don't sleep much for one reason or another run a risk of becoming obese...

But I'm sure that like so many things in life, it ain't that simple an equation. There are lots more factors involved too.

[Nonny]

DWF, on Dec 17 2004, 03:53 PM, said:

Quote

I suffer sleep apnea, to the rate of stopping breathing 100 times a night, and am awake about every hour. I have suffered this all my life and since age seven have been over weight.

You should see a sleep doctor and get either a Bi/PAP or CPAP machine, I use one anbd I get a full night's sleep and your breathing won't stop.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I get my CPAP machine Thursday.  I was skeptical about it at Sleep Clinic last September, but the third nose thingee they tried worked for me.  I couldn't sleep with the ones that cover the nose or the nose and mouth, but when they tried the one that comes up over the head and shoots air into the nose without covering it, I was out before I was finished grumbling that I wouldn't be able to sleep.  

emsparks, on Dec 17 2004, 04:04 PM, said:

Been there done that. I cannot sleep without my CPAP machine, and my breathing still stops. I’m still awake almost every 45 minutes or an hour, with the CPAP machine.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Apparently there are more options now.  The techs I'll be seeing Thursday also have sleep apnea.  They found that trying the newer nose thingees helped them.  Also, the one I'm getting allows me to sleep on my side instead of my back, and that helps me too.  

Nonny

[Brynhilde]

Hmm.. thats interesting. I'm a little over 7 stone, at 5 foot 7 in height, and I eat like a horse and sleep.. usually 8 hours or so, and yet, when I had insomnia (didn't sleep for about 3 or 4 days) sometimes I had interrupted sleep as well... I actually lost weight. Odd, possibly stress levels which connect the two could have something to do with it, but its an interesting study

I suppose the longer you're awake, the more you tend to do, so the more you burn energy and respire and stuff, so the more energy (food) you need.  Fairly basic biology points towards that.

[The Groovy Mule]

Interesting study, but all it really seems to say is that people who get less sleep eat fattier foods, and the fatty foods put on the weight.

Well hellsbells, that's not news...we've known for several thousand years now that eating fatty foods expands the waistline.

As The Groovy Mule sees it, it's not really about the sleep...that's just a cop out.  It's about eating things in amounts you shouldn't.  In other words...discipline or the lack thereof.  Aside from those who have genuine medical conditions that affect weight, obesity comes from diet, and searching for excuses is just pinning the "Pity Me" badge on at a different angle.

The Groovy Mule suggests you pull a plow for a few hours a day and see where the weight goes.  "Eat right and exercise" is the time-honored solution to flab.  If you're not into pulling plows, take a long walk or ride a bike and whatever you do...lay off the Ho-Hos.

[D.Rabbit]

Groovy Mule, your right, but what I think this study is talking about is that the brain is made up of sugar. It craves sugar. If it gets the big 8 hours it has been sugar deprived and goes into a type of hormone replacement therapy, Those two hormones noted above, I'm speaking of. It will also take the sugar from the blood stream so it doesn't turn to fat.

Those of us who run on split sleeping patterns or less than 8 hours sleep at a go, need more sugar/starches to keep our brains happy so we might over eat on the sweets, more than the snoozers.

Still, it's what you eat and how much. How much of your body is muscle, because muscle burns off more calories than bone and fat to maintain.

So while your waiting for that page to load you guys and gals on dial up, grab some weights or go isometric like I do. Man I have some tight glutts for someone who sits in front a machine for long hours.

[Elara]

There are many factors not mentioned.
For instance, at 5'8" I weighed in at 130 just this last summer, muscle, no fat.
Now I weigh... yeah, more than I should. Why? Well, I work graveyard and that means messed up sleeping patterns. This was fine last summer cuz I was working days on the farm and eating very little during the day. While at my night job I ate to keep awake. It worked great.

Now, I am not working on a farm, but still working graveyard. I can't sleep more than three hours at a time most of the time, that means I am dead tired at work.

After about a week, I generally crash for most of a day, waking up to do chores, feed my son, take him to school, but falling right to sleep the second I sit down.
Anyway, I still eat at night just to keep awake, the job is front desk at a smalltown motel. But I also eat in the daytime, which if I was working on the farm, I wouldn't be...

Confusing, I know. Basically, if I had a day job, too or simply worked days and not graveyard, I would still be trim. I'm not obese, at least my doc says I'm not, I feel like I am, but that must just be me, ~yeah right~, but I am very uncomfortable at this weight.

Stress will and has caused me to lose sleep and weight.

So yes, this study is lacking many factors, tho as an overall basis, it is correct.