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Sleep Less, Eat More?
Ant writes "A study, published Monday, found that people who sleep less tend to be fat, and experts said it's time to find if more sleep will fight obesity. Monday's study from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk covered 1,000 people and found that total sleep time decreased as body mass index -- a measure of weight based on height -- increased. Men slept an average of 27 minutes less than women and overweight and obese patients slept less than patients with normal weights, it said. In general the fatter subjects slept about 1.8 hours a week less than those with normal weights."
I have sleep apnea and I will testify before you all that because of significant sleep deprivation during my youth, I had to eat foods that were:
a) Rich in sugar or grease
b) Fast and easy to prepare
If these conditions aren't met, I could not function very well, even with CPAP.
I was born with an unusually narrow throat, and I spent most of my early childhood as a beanpole -- I was super skinny. But after years of chronic apnea, due to the OSA, I slowly grew... and then suddenly I became super-sized.
I would daydream in class (ie: getting my waking REM), and even fall asleep during lectures.
I had zero energy, so I drank a pot of coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon, along with cigarettes to speed my heart up and get me going. I could never have graduated from school without doing this. Society requires that everyone must perform at a uniformed level, unless you have a disability, but my disability was never discovered until I was 30yrs. That's 30yrs of health slippage....
The point is... people with sleeping disorders need to have the disorders fixed, but the current CPAP machines are really not a solution -- they aren't ready to combat the seasons properly and they are horrible for people with dust allergies.
Until a solution for apnea is found and people realize that being overweight is not the cause, but a symptom -- people with apnea and other sleeping disorders won't be very healthy (mentally, emotionally or physically).
There are some studies that link high cortisol levels (due to stress) with an increased chance of obesity.
Could it be simply that people who got enough sleep were less stressed?
www.eFax.com are spammers
What? "it's time find"??
Some of it might have to do with the relationship between obesity and lack of exercise. When I am on a regular exercise regime, I find myself forced to sleep 7 or 8 hours a night rather than 5 or 6 -- otherwise I feel completely exhausted. Sedentary people may be able to get by on less sleep than the physically active.
Without having read TFA, I can already say that this is fairly obvious if you think about it.
When you start to get tired, you feel low-energy. When you feel low-energy, you eat "quick energy" foods - those that are readily metabolized and high in calories. It's your body saying "Oh, crap! We don't have enough energy right now! Do something about it!" (This is due to falling glucose levels in the brain as you get tired, but I'm sure that's covered in TFA.)
Of course, you don't really need the energy, you need sleep. The result is that you take in waaay more calories than your body actually uses. The more sleep deprived you are, the more this happens.
It makes me wonder if there's a causal relationship between the decreasing amount of sleep your average American (and, indeed, member of any industrialized nation) gets and the increases seen in obesity.
That green slime had it coming.
Considering I average 5.5 hours of sleep per day. However, I run 3 miles per day eat only two meals and drink lots of water and caffeine and weigh 155 lbs. Did they include someone like me in the study? Of course not. Geez, most studies are designed to prove the intent of those performing the study - not get actual objective information.
If it turns out that fat people have more trouble sleeping than thin ones, then they would sleep less, but trying to force them to sleep more (drugs perhaps) would not necessarily decrease their weight...
This is slightly true, but you're missing a key factor. Many more people have Obstructive Sleep Apnea than currently are being treated for it, and among those who are being treated, many are still suffering from sleep loss due to throat obstruction. This obstruction was thought to have been caused by obesity, and it still is by many doctors -- but as being someone who was very skinny in my younger life and someone who became overweight as a result of apnea, I can tell you that obesity is a symptom of sleep deprivation. We eat the things that are easy to prepare (or even fast food), and we eat more sugar to get boosts, as a direct result of not being able to function properly in society. Plus being in a semi-REM state all day long truly hurts one's ability to make sane/wise food choices. And workouts? HA! As if you're going to cruelly force someone who is sleep deprived to excercise! That would be cruel and unusual punishment -- but it's what doctors are recommending.
Until someone comes up with a way to let people with respiratory problems actually function like normal people, there are going to be people getting fat because of their lack of energy.
I'm thinking that oxygen in CPAP machines might actually help, but it's not a standard right now. Also, more humid climates might help if they weren't so bloody hot (making you more relaxed and making it harder to breathe).
Personally I would like to see a kind of room built that controlled the envorionment for people with OSA. If it was self-cleaning -- it would be perfect!
I think there is an even simpler explanation: Those who sleep not that much/well tend to head for the fridge at night for little "snacks".
At least that was my first thought when I read the headline...
I don't read replies by ACs.
Maybe, but I would suspect that stress may play a role: inadequate sleep means a stressed organism. Stress messes with body chemistry in ways that have been linked to obesity - and obesity itself is a stressor, creating a feedback loop. People also often turn to "comfort food" when stressed.
There have been high-stress low-sleep times in my life when I've tried to substitute food for sleep; fortunately I was aware enough to see what I was doing and restore my old eating habits after the stress had passed and sleep patterns were more normal.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
people who live a lifestyle that results in less sleep
are also prone to making bad eating decisions ie. the busy
guy that grabs fast food every day?
While I am definitely in favor of any study that could
be used to justify sleeping more (hooray for sleep),
"less sleep = fatness" seems like a bit of a leap.
I'm overweight. Very overweight.(Over 100 pounds) I know what I'm talking about here.
:p
Fat people sleep less because of this thing called gravity.
I can't get as comfortable as a thin person when I'm trying to fall asleep. Something as simple as rolling over can make my ample body cut off circulation to an arm or leg which disturbs my sleep as well.
No, I'm not whining as this is obviously my fault for years and years of taking zero care of myself. Just stating what(for me) is an obvious fact.
Flame away.
Think back to the last time you did an all-night coding session. What kind of food did you eat? Those vending machines don't exactly sell health food.
For non-nerdy types (and many nerds too) -- think back to your last all-night drinking session. Beer is full of fat and carbs, and the pizza and junk food that goes along with it is pretty fattening too.
And regardless of why you're up late at night, if you go out to eat, the only restaurants open an 2 in the morning are Taco Bell and Denny's.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
I found this sleep/calorie calculator. It depends on your weight. You can check out tons of activities and the calories burned here
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Basically giving away Gmail accounts.
How did lack of sleep force you to eat foods that were fast and easy to prepare or eat high fat foods?
:(
I never became fat until I went to university and had to fend for myself. Up until that point I was literally dragged everywhere by my parents, who thought I was just a lazy kid. I can remember several times in my early youth when I would be dreaming in class with my eyes open, and I can also remember being numb from pins and needles while in gym class. Oh and I'd get dizzy alot too. All these are signs of a lack of energy, and all were overlooked, because at the time, doctors were not looking for OSA in children -- it was dubbed the fat man's disorder, because fat men were diagnosed with it. Doctors were looking for people who got fat and got apnea because they got fat -- they weren't looking at people who might get fat because they have apnea.
Today, doctors are still in the dark. My own doctor looked at me strangely when I explained that I became fat from being tired all the time. Nobody can understand how someone could be too tired to cook a meal for themselves, or get off their ass to do something physical. It's very painful to be tired all the time. Even now... I'm still tired.
The sleep lab said 2000 times per night, I would wake from apnea when I was diagnosed. Now that number likely grew from the slow deterioration from years of having untreated OSA. But to put it in perspective -- That's four times per minute. And that's a low average compared to some folks who are more like 20 times per minute. To try and understand this... simply have someone wake your ass out of bed at 4am ONCE with a blowhorn... they run in and shout crazy crap at you and then they leave. That's some of the fear and loathing associated with apnea. You might see how someone doing the blowhorn trick 2000 times a night would be at risk of being murdered outright by even the most angelical person.
It's truly a horrible thing, but it's life and I'm living a higher quality of it since I've been on CPAP. But not much higher. Realistically... I'd say that for 25% of the day I have 100% more energy and the rest of the day decreases on a curve until at 3pm I'm dead tired and juicing on coffee. But my job keeps me up too...
So to clarify; my parents would cook, but I would eat candy whenever I could get it. Steal it... borrow it and beg for it. I'd drink a load of juice too growing up. I'd get whatever I could to get energy. Drugs, alcohol... anything.
Now it's easier. I can nap from time to time during the day because I work as a programmer. And that seriously helps. Everyone with OSA should be able by law to have a nap ANYTIME. (well not while they are driving, but you get the point)
That there is a correlation between getting enough exercise and being of normal weight is well known. Isn't there also a correlation between being getting enough exercise and sleeping well? Wouldn't these two correlations explain the observed results? "Get more exercise then you'll both lose weight and sleep better" seems more likely to me to be causal relationships, than "try and sleep better and then you'll lose weight".
All of the fad diets that actually worked over the past two or three decades have one thing in common: DON'T EAT SUGAR.
The "Eat to Win" diet of the '80s was a high carbohydrate, low protein, moderate fat diet that worked. The guy who invented it was Martina Natrilova's trainer, and it worked for her.
The Atkins diet is just the opposite, low carbohydrate, moderate fat and high protein, and it works too.
Both these diets work as long as the dieter actually follows them.
The one thing they have in common is DON'T EAT SUGAR. Don't drink sugary caffeinated beverages. Don't eat ice cream. Don't eat candy bars. Don't eat donuts.
The really bad thing is that eating sugar makes you hungry.
It's not rocket science, but it's harder than Hell to give up sweets if you have a sweet tooth.
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Most things in nature aren't just simple causalities expressed in ten words or less. For example, in chemistry, chemicals A and B don't always react to each other in the same way; results vary according to temperatures, catalysts, charge, etc.
Maybe some day people will actually realize that we are all different. Maybe some people are obese due to apnea, and others have apnea due to obesity. I think it's more likely that apnea and obesity are both huge risk factors to anyone's overall health, and would contribute to or trigger any other problems an individual may have or be predisposed to...
It's time for doctors to focus on actual (whole) individuals and their stories, and stop trying to choose from pre-fabricated pharmaceutical company recommendations about which miracle pill is right for the smiley people pictured in which glossy brochure....
--ss
"The shin bone's connected to the knee bone... [ad nauseum]"
Umm... on the physical discomfort bit: My mother mentioned once that when you're dehydrated you tend to mistake the need for water for a need for food and act accordingly. Also, I've noticed that when I'm dehydrated I sleep less as I feel like I need to drink more fluids. Maybe obesity isnt caused by a lack of sleep, but actually a lack of water? Maybe I should drink more water so that I'm not such an enormous fat ass. There's gotta be some ancient subconscious reaction in The Foraging Creature which requires you to get out of bed and drink water.
In a side note, have you ever noticed how few water fountains there are in the world, and how many soda machines there are? Notice how so few of those take plastic or bills larger than a dollar? Maybe we just need to replace the soda and snack machines with free water vending machines. That might solve a lot of the country's issues.
SRSLY.
>> Sleeping less means more time available for eating!
There is VERY VERY little correlation between eating more food and being more obese because of it. Weight gain has more to do with what you eat, when you eat it, the relationship between what/when you eat and what you do or don't do physically during the day, as well as a host of other factors including stress, body chemistry, genetics, age, metabolism, medications, etc, etc.
There MAY be a correlation between how much sleep a person gets (and when/how they get it, quality of sleep, etc) and their tendency to be obese, but it is not likely to be because they're spending that extra 1.8 hours EATING! (though the absurdity of that theory is quite amusing)
Since you say you're knowledgeable about sleep, though, perhaps you can shed some light on the following question, which I'm quite curious about:Since we can't realistically consume enough food to last us for the 7-8 hours we're asleep, that means (I think) our bodies are running on a deficit of food-based energy while we're asleep. Of course this is when our bodies start taking energy from other places, like our muscles, etc...
So, given that, would we be better off on a 4 hours asleep, 8 hours up, 4 hours asleep, 8 hours up schedule (so that we could eat between sleeping cycles), instead of the "normal" 8 hours asleep, 16 hours up schedule?
Suggestion for the new slashdot poll:
"My Body Mass Index (BMI) is:
0-15
15-18
18-20
20-25
25-30
30-35
cowboy neal
For the record, I am a fatso with a BMI of 31.
evanchik.net
Err, actually, eating six smaller meals a day is far better for you than eating three big ones. It's certainly far easier on your pancreas, as it helps to maintain a steady blood sugar level throughout the day, meaning your insulin levels don't spike and crash through the day.
More specifically, this is a response which makes perfect sense in evolutionary terms: if you're not sleeping and/or generally stressed, to the caveman brain that means that you're in danger, and danger usually means lean times ahead. Best to stock up on food now, because you're never sure when you might get your next meal. Like an awful lot of primitive responses that make perfect sense in a wild state, this is (obviously) short-circuited by modern society. Er, in First World countries, anyway.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The post says they sleep 1.8 hours less a week. A week. Thats .25 hours a day or around 15 minutes. All they found out is that fat people sleep 15 minutes less a day than thin people. I hardly think this suggests that fat people need less sleep than thin people because they do less.
NJ Local Music Scene
Sleeping less means more time available for eating!
There are other obvious explanations as well, such as getting insuffient rest leads to less energy/motivation to exercise.
I (in theory) keep a pretty regular workout schedule, running a couple/three times a week and a little light free weight work every other night. When, for whatever reason, I get less sleep than usual the night before I find it very difficult, sometimes impossible, to summon the motivation to get off the couch and go out for my run or pick up the weights. That and when I do win the battle on sleepy days my performance sucks, I lose a couple of reps on the weights or I never feel like I'm hitting my stride when running. And on days where I'm really dragging after work I head right for the high-calorie, easy to prepare option for dinner instead of putting in the effort to make something better for me.
Of course as some other posters have pointed out the relationship between obesity and sleeplessness could be reversed, it's harder to get a good night sleep when you're obsese because of the other health problems associated with obesity. I'm betting on it being one of those vicous cycle things: it's harder to live healthy when you're not well rested and it's harder to sleep well when you're not living healthy... ad infinitum.
To add more anecdotal evidence to the argument. When I do get in a good run after work I sleep like a rock and usually go to bed 30-60 minutes earlier. So I'm better rested the next night, which makes it easier to keep working out and eating better, which makes it easier to work out... ad infinitum.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Don't suffer pointlessly. Firstly, there are a wide variety of migraine treatments. Don't live with unacceptable side effects. Secondly, PPIs: proton pump inhibitors, which stop stomach acid. They're pricey, but God's gift to the bad stomach. Seriously--if you can afford them, kiss that acid problem goodbye. Thirdly, exercise can help reduce migraine. In my case, casual weightlifting really helps, and adjustable dumbbells are cheap and take up hardly any space. Fourthly, diet strongly affects migraine in some people. Common offenders are beans, tea, cheeses, cured meat, and MSG. Google for elimination diets for migraine. Fifthly, migraine is not a type of headache, it's a major neurological disorder. When you feel pain, it's not because the one isolated pain nerve is acting up, it's because something took an inflammatory shotgun to your brain. Anything that is controlled by the central nervous system can go crazy: heart, kidneys, digestive tract, circulation in hands and feet, you name it. It gives me extreme indigestion and resulting lack of sleep. I thank heaven for PPIs. One time it made me pee every couple of hours during the night, which has to be the silliest symptom I've ever experienced.
Moreover, if you accrue 1.8 hours over 7 days that's 25 mins/day of lost sleep - which is not significant.
I suppose these people regenerate less seritonin and therefor have a higher carbo/protein appetite.
old news.
Have they considered the possibility that people who are less active don't need to sleep longer and that active people need to sleep more to recover for the next day of activity?
Studies these days never seem to want to account for such obvious things (in my opinion).
My comments were directed more at the study and its weaknesses not on the causes of sleep disorders. If you will notice, I said "At any rate, there were some serious problems with this study in terms of proper controls, including analysis of sleep disordered breathing (causing sleeplessness) that may in of itself be due to pre existing obesity.
I ran a sleep lab for almost four years before going into basic science research and have seen my share of common sleep apnea and difficult to diagnose sleep disorders from parasomnias to nocturnal epilepsies. I do not take these conditions lightly nor do I believe they are "simple" problems. Thus my commentary on the "simple" study finding a causative link between total sleep time and obesity.
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Read Power Sleep by Dr. Maas. All students who took his PSYCH101 class know that the more you sleep the healthier you are (and the lighter you are) because it's only in deep sleep that your body can release the appropriate hormones that gauge how over/underweight you are and adjust accordingly. Undergraduates are some of the most sleep-deprived members of society (especially at his school, Cornell) and are operating at suboptimal levels for months on end! So when you get out of school, SLEEP! I'm getting 9 hours per night and loving it.