Sleep. It’s something that many of us take for granted. But many experts say that a good night’s sleep helps cut appetite by as much as 500 calories a day. This was seen in a new study made. Hence, getting enough sleep, people could avoid gaining unwanted weight, as many scientists believe.
The study was made in England, a country where an estimated that two out of every three men and six out of 10 women suffer from either obesity or from being overweight. The problem with obesity is that this increases the odds for suffering from mental health problems. This has been linked to heart conditions, diabetes, and cancer as well, all of which have become the leading causes of death.
The scientists from the University of Chicago Medicine have studied this phenomena and have come up with a simple solution which many can do. It’s also a good welcome for those who are tired, and that’s basically getting more sleep each day.
Author Dr. Esra Tasali shared, “Over the years, we and others have shown that sleep restriction has an effect on appetite regulation that leads to increased food intake, and thus puts you at risk for weight gain over time. More recently, the question that everyone was asking was, ‘Well, if this is what happens with sleep loss, can we extend sleep and reverse some of these adverse outcomes?’”
In order to make the study possible, the researchers recruited a total of 80 young, overweight adults, who would usually only sleep only six and half hours each night. They were then asked to wear a sleep monitor and given counseling sessions. This was designed to help prepare them to rest for eight and half hours every night. They were also able to sleep in their own beds and were not asked to make any dietary changes.
Dr. Tasali said, “Most other studies on this topic in labs are short-lived, for a couple of days, and food intake is measured by how much participants consume from an offered diet. In our study, we only manipulated sleep, and had the participants eat whatever they wanted, with no food logging or anything else to track their nutrition by themselves.”
Participants were able to increase their average sleep time by over an hour each night after only one counseling session. In order for the researchers to track their caloric intake, they made use of a special urine test called the “doubly labelled water method.” This required giving participants water where the hydrogen and oxygen atoms have been replaced with substances that are less common as well as safe.
Senior author of the study, Professor Dale Schoeller, said, “This is considered the gold standard for objectively measuring daily energy expenditure in a non-laboratory, real-world setting and it has changed the way human obesity is studied.”
People who were able to sleep longer were also able to lessen their calorie intake by an average of 270 kcal each day. Some have even managed to cut out a total of 500 kcal, something that they discovered. The numbers translate to roughly 12 kg [26 lbs] of weight loss over three years. The best part was that they were able to maintain this in the long run.
Dr. Tasali said, “We saw that after just a single sleep counselling session, participants could change their bedtime habits enough to lead to an increase in sleep duration. We simply coached each individual on good sleep hygiene, and discussed their own personal sleep environments, providing tailored advice on changes they could make to improve their sleep duration.”
He also added, “Importantly, to blind participants to sleep intervention, recruitment materials did not mention sleep intervention, allowing us to capture true habitual sleep patterns at baseline.” The study took a total of four weeks to complete, and the first two of which were focused on finding out how many hours the participants enjoyed.
Dr. Tasali said, “This was not a weight-loss study. But even within just two weeks, we have quantified evidence showing a decrease in caloric intake and a negative energy balance—caloric intake is less than calories burned.”
Hence, a healthy sleep pattern may help combat obesity, a problem that affects around 13 percent of the total population worldwide. Dr. Tasali said, “If healthy sleep habits are maintained over longer duration, this would lead to clinically important weight loss over time. Many people are working hard to find ways to decrease their caloric intake to lose weight —well, just by sleeping more, you may be able to reduce it substantially.”
The findings of the study had been published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
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