Lack of sleep makes you fat by two kilograms a week

You gain two pounds a week without sleep

Professor Ken White of the University of Colorado at Boulder led the research team to recruit 16 young, slender, healthy adults as volunteers and let them live in a "bedroom" at the University of Colorado Hospital for two weeks.

For the first three days, the researchers had volunteers sleep 9 hours a night, providing them with only enough calories to maintain weight during the day.

For the next five days, the researchers divided the volunteers into two groups. The first group slept for 5 hours a night, and the second group slept for 9 hours. All volunteers can eat at will, and a large number of meats and fruits, yogurt, ice cream, potato chips and other snacks are available.

After that, the two groups of volunteers switched their sleep schedules. The first group slept 9 hours a night, and the second group slept up to 5 hours.

Insufficient sleep, increased food intake

The researchers wrote in a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that longer periods of wakefulness meant that the body needed to consume more energy, but volunteers who slept less consumed more calories.

Experimental results showed that compared with volunteers who slept for 9 hours, volunteers who only slept for 5 hours at night consumed 5% more calories a day, but consumed 6% more calories.

Volunteers who lacked sleep tended to eat less breakfast and snack after dinner, which were often rich in sugar and fat and had high calories. As a result, the snacks they ate contained more calories than any of the three meals a day.

After less than 5 consecutive days of sleep, the volunteers gained an average of two pounds (0.91 kilograms). After enough sleep, the volunteers consumed less fat and carbohydrates, and their weight decreased.

The relationship between sleep and weight should be paid attention to

The British "Daily Mail" quoted White as saying on the 11th:"Our research shows that when people lack sleep, they like to eat at night, but from a physiological point of view, this time period is not suitable for eating."

White said their research results show that adequate sleep helps people maintain a healthy weight, so people should pay attention to healthy sleep when they want to lose weight or maintain weight. "I don't think just sleeping more will make you lose weight. The issues of weight gain and obesity are quite complex, but getting enough sleep can play a role in losing weight or maintaining weight."

Several previous studies have shown that lack of sleep is detrimental to health. Interference with sleep affects stress levels and hunger hormone secretion when awake; lack of sleep significantly slows down the body's metabolism and reduces calorie consumption; people who sleep less than 5 hours are prone to gain weight and are also prone to weight-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes.