Now here's another reason to get some sleep!

Have you heard that lack of sleep can result in obesity? Well a recent study claims to have teased out why this may be. It seems that sleeping too little encourages snacking. 

In this  2008 study, headed by Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago, 11 men and women agreed to spend two 14 day periods in the sleep lab. On the first occasion they were restricted to 5.5 hours of sleep and on the second they were allowed 8.5 hours. On each occasion they were able to eat whatever they liked.

Results showed that when they were restricted to 5.5 hours of sleep they ate an average of 1,087 calories in snacks. On the days after  8.5 hours sleep their snacks averaged only 866 calories.

But don't get too anxious about this because total calories consumed and total weight gain was not different. The short sleep and the normal sleep resulted in a similar average daily intake and weight increase. The only difference was that they ate more of their calories as snacks when they were sleep deprived.

Of course this was a small and vey short study so I wouldn't put too much weight on it! 

SOURCES:

SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, Baltimore June 7-12, 2008.

Plamen Penev, MD, PhD, University of Chicago.

Sanjeev Kothare, MD, spokesman, American Academy of Sleep Medicine; department of neurology, Harvard Medical School.