Poor Sleep Alters Metabolism and Boosts Body's Ability To Store Fat, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The latest study provides new evidence that sleep deprivation has a direct influence on basic metabolism and the body's balance between fat and muscle mass. In the study, published in the journal Science Advances, 15 healthy volunteers each attended a testing session on two occasions, once after a normal night's sleep and once after staying up all night. During the visit, they gave samples of fat and muscle tissue and blood. After sleep deprivation, people's fat tissue showed changes in gene activity that are linked to cells increasing their tendency to absorb lipids and also to proliferate.

By contrast, in muscle the scientists saw reduced levels of structural proteins, which are the building blocks the body requires to maintain and build muscle mass. Previous epidemiological studies have also found shift workers and those who sleep less have lower muscle mass. This may be in part down to lifestyle factors, but the latest work shows that there are also fundamental biological mechanisms at play. The study also found an increase in inflammation in the body after sleep deprivation, which is a known risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Comments

External locus of control

[philmarcracken]

Another article, another piece to a solved puzzle. If you want to gain weight, what does google say? You have to eat more calories than you expend. The excess will be stored as fat.

And if you want to lose weight, you do the opposite. This will never stop working. People cling to these articles out of nothing but confirmation bias for their continued gluttony. Its not hormones, insulin, genetics, PCOS, or medications. Just gluttony.

Re:External locus of control

[Anonymous Coward]

That's complete and utter bull. I can make you gain fat tissue while you eat NOTHING, literally ZERO calories, all I have to do is inject you with lots of insulin. It will absolutely work. At least for the week or two until you die. When you're high on insulin, your body will first deplete its glucose, then its glycogen, then in desperation it will start breaking down muscles for protein to turn into glucose, WHILE STILL DESPERATELY STUFFING WHAT LITTLE ENERGY YOU HAVE INTO MORE FAT. And then you will literally die of starvation while also gaining fat at the same time.

So how does someone eating literally NOTHING and gaining fat fit into your pretty little pet theory?

Insulin is the "make fat" signal, and when your body is high on it, for whatever reason, you WILL make fat, period, even if your organism has to pretty much shut down metabolism, or literally eat itself to do it.

And guess what. Typical Western diet and feeding patterns make people produce way more insulin than they need, even if they are on calorie deficit. Most diets do so as well. That's why they universally fail.

Re:External locus of control

[AmiMoJo]

If it were as easy as eating less and doing more exercise then people wouldn't find it so hard to lose weight. Clearly it's more than just balancing the calorie chequebook.

The main problem is that once you have put on significant weight your body fights you to stop to taking it off. If you try to eat fewer calories it cranks up the feelings of hunger and reduces energy consumption, making you feel tired, which in turn has mental health consequences over the longer term.

Even if you don't believe that, you must surely accept that blaming people for "gluttony" doesn't work either. Berating and denigrating them for being overweight does not help or encourage them to lose weight. From a pure engineering point of view we need a better solution.