Sleep deprivation and weight
24-04-2013
The more we discover about sleep the more we realise what a wide array of physical and mental conditions it has an effect on. One recent discovery found that there is a direct connection between sleep deprivation and weight gain. Yes, not sleeping well can lead to weight gain, as if not getting enough sleep wasn’t a big enough problem on its own, it is also hell for your waistline.
The researchers found that people who weren’t sleep well produced more of a hormone called ghrelin and less of one called leptin. Ghrelin is basically the get up and go hormone that tells you when to eat, and when you are sleep-deprived you produce more ghrelin while leptin is the hormone that tells you to stop eating, and when you are sleep deprived, you produce less leptin.
This means that the less sleep you get the greater your appetite. Even worse, the researchers found that those sleep deprived people with an abundance of leptin craved fatty and unhealthy foods, meaning that they often not only ate more but they ate worse food as well.
If you are struggling with sleep then here is an extra motivation to get it sorted. The longer you are sleep deprived the greater your appetite for junk food becomes.
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