Junk Food Craving When Deprived Of Sleep Could Lead To Obesity

Obesity could be caused by deprivation of sleep which leads to a craving for unhealthy food.

According to a new study to understand the link between sleep restriction and obesity, the sight of unhealthy food during a period of sleep restriction activated reward centers in the brain that were less active when participants had enough sleep.

25 men and women of normal weight were divided into two groups where one group's sleep was restricted to four hours for five nights and the second group were allowed to continue sleeping upto nine hours.

MRIs of their brains were taken whilst they looked at images of healthy and unhealthy foods and the results were compared.
The sleep deprived group ate more overall and consumed more fat compared to those who had regular sleep.

The study's principal investigator noted that "The unhealthy food response was a neuronal pattern specific to restricted sleep. This may suggest greater propensity to succumb to unhealthy foods when one is sleep restricted."

This study confirms previous research that also showed that sleep deprivation leads to increased food consumption, particularly sweet and salty food in otherwise healthy people.

Healthy Sleep Could Prevent The Onset Of Diabetes In Teenagers

Onset of diabetes in teenagers could be prevented if they slept more as more sleep improves insulin resistance.
High levels of insulin resistance can lead to the onset of diabetes and lowering insulin resistance is thus very important in preventing it.

According to a new study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh.Increasing the amount of sleep that teenagers get could improve their insulin resistance and prevent the future onset of diabetes.

Sleep duration and insulin resistance were tracked in 245 teenagers. Results showed that this higher resistance to insulin was associated with shorter sleep duration regardless of race, age, gender etc.

According to the lead author of this study, Karen Matthews, this study is the only one that has shown this relationship in healthy teenagers, that is independent of obesity.

Not getting enough sleep is linked to obesity.

Not getting enough sleep is linked to obesity. A new study by Francesco P. Cappuccio, MD, of Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom attempted to quantify the cross-sectional relationship between duration of sleep and obesity in both adults and children.

Taking a cross section of the studies done around the world, they found that there was a consistent increased risk of obesity among short sleepers.

This study is important as it confirms that the association between sleep and obesity is strong, and might be of public health relevance.
But it doesn't answer the question yet of whether it's the obesity that is the cause of the short sleep duration, or whether the short duration of sleep is causing obesity.
More studies are neede to answer that question..

And by the way, the recommended nightly sleep for adults is 7-8 hours.

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Inositol or myo-inositol is a relative of the vitamin B complex family.
It encourages sounder sleep and relaxes nervous tension.
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