According to a study led by the University of Colorado Boulder, sleeping five hours a night and having unlimited access to food caused participants to gain nearly TWO pounds! This study suggests that proper sleep could help battle the rapid spread of epidemic. “I don’t think extra sleep by itself is going to lead to weight loss,” said Kenneth Wright, director of CU-Boulder’s Sleep and Chronobiology Laboratory, which led the study. “Problems with weight gain and obesity are much more complex than that. But I think it could help. If we can incorporate healthy sleep into weight-loss and weight maintenance programs, our findings suggest that it may assist people to obtain a healthier weight.
16 young, healthy adults were placed at the University of Colorado Hospital for about two weeks, which is equipped with a “sleep suite” for controlling sleep opportunities–by providing a silent environment and by regulating when the lights are on or off–and a sealed room that allows researchers to measure how much energy participants are using based on the amount of oxygen they breathe in and the amount of carbon dioxide they breathe. You’d expect that the group sleeping five hours a day to lose weight, due to an increase of calories burned. In fact, the participants burned 5% more energy than the participants with adequate amount of sleep. There’s a catch: those receiving less sleep also tended to eat smaller breakfasts but binge on after-dinner snacks, consuming 6% more calories. The total amount of calories that consumed in evening snacks was larger than the calories that made up any individual meal! This finding adds to the postulation that overeating at night may contribute to weight gain.Next time you’re ready to pull an all-nighter…think again!
~Meera Nagpal
Source: sciencedaily.com
