Lack of Sleep Can Contribute to Weight Gain
Studies find changes in metabolism following one sleepless night.
There are many reasons you may not be getting enough sleep, maybe you're a shift worker like 15 million Americans are, or maybe your children keep you up at all hours of the night, whatever the reason, your lack of sleep could seriously be affecting your health and even your weight. There is now evidence that shows how our body composition changes when we don't get enough sleep for even as little as one night. That is a scary thought as most of us struggle to get even a fraction of the recommended amount.
A study out of Uppsala University, concludes sleep loss can impact our gene regulation and metabolism even if it's only for one night. Researchers studied 15 healthy people of normal weight and monitored them in the lab over a period of two days. The participants slept a normal 8 hour night the first night, then kept awake the entire second night. During this time their meals and activity levels were kept standardized. Each morning researchers took a biopsy of their subcutaneous fat and skeletal muscle and compared them. They found a tissue-specific change in a mechanism that regulates gene expression specifically how the genes in every cell of the body are turned on or off. Researchers believe the change could be related to how the tissues are affected by the circadian rhythm and sleep loss can cause a misalignment. These results are only the beginning of understanding the effects chronic sleep loss has on the body and how it resembles changes in metabolism and risks for other lifestyle diseases such as diabetes.
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