There really is an easy trick to curbing weight gain and reducing the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. All it requires is getting to bed on time.
New research shows that losing even just a bit of sleep over time can mean putting on a pound of weight in six weeks. At that rate, weight gain would be nearly nine pounds over a year.
Most of the research on sleep deprivation in the past were done under dramatic conditions, like only allowing participants a maximum of four hours of sleep. Real-life loss of sleep happens at a smaller scale over a longer period of time.
This kind of mild sleep deprivation affects about 30% of adults, researchers said.
This study looked at adults who normally get seven to eight hours of sleep a night and told them to delay their sleep time by 90 minutes.
While only getting five to six hours of sleep, participants gained one pound on average over six weeks.
“When extrapolated to a full year, we would expect that losing less than an hour and a half of sleep per night could result in clinically meaningful weight gain,” said author Faris Zuraikat, assistant professor of nutritional medicine in Columbia’s Department of Medicine and Institute for Human Nutrition.
Overall, participants also spent less time active during their day while experiencing mild sleep deprivation — about 17 additional minutes a day spent sitting or otherwise sedentary. For men and postmenopausal women, that number nearly doubled to 30 minutes a day.
“Even when we accounted for the fact that they were awake longer when sleep was shortened, participants spent more time being inactive than when they got adequate sleep,” Zuraikat says. “This is notable, as people who are more sedentary have elevated risk for chronic diseases.”
How does lack of sleep affect the body?
Poor sleep creates behavior changes. You become tired and less motivated to be active. Over time, you’ll also reach for rich, sweet and fatty foods.
It also directly affects your body.
Getting less than seven hours of sleep a night can lead to high blood pressure and inflammation, stressing the heart and potentially contributing to heart disease. Blood pressure drops during the hours you’re asleep, and less time asleep means less time for the heart to get that break.
Lack of sleep also messes with your blood sugar. Excess weight is a leading driver of high blood sugar.
More sugar in the blood means more sugar is stored as fat in the body if a person becomes insulin resistant. Short or disrupted sleep can raise your risk of insulin resistance by 40% to 80%.
The great news is that while losing sleep can cause you to gain weight, the inverse is also true: losing weight can help improve sleep.
Losing weight can improve airway obstruction that causes sleep apnea, lowering inflammation that causes restlessness and relieving joint pain that might keep you up.
A recent study also pointed to sleep deprivation as one of several other bad habits that could accelerate aging in the brain, particularly damage linked to higher risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s.
The others are daytime napping, sleeplessness, unintentional daytime dozing and snoring.
Those who slept less than seven hours a night had more brain lesions associated with dementia and Alzheimers, the study found.
Sleep is essential for the brain to perform functions like cellular repair, memory processing and the removal of toxins and waste.
