A recently published study offers a simple strategy for weight loss: sleep an extra hour every night! Indeed, increasing sleep time would help regulate appetite and therefore reduce the amount of calories ingested during the day.
In France, there are 6.5 million obese people, or 14.5% of the adult population. Obesity is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Because being overweight means being exposed to an increased risk of developing diabetescardiovascular diseases, some cancer…
Obesity is a complex, multifactorial disease. A link has recently been established between obesity and depression. The lack of sleep is one of the identified risk factors for obesity. What if extending the sleep time of overweight people could allow them to lose weight? This is what the authors of an article recently published in JAMA wanted to know.
Be coached to sleep better
The study gate out of 80 adults, ages 21-40, who used to sleep less than 6.5 hours a night. The participants were overweight, with BMI between 25 and 30. As a reminder, a person is considered obese when the BMI is greater than 30.
Two groups were formed. The first does not change his sleep habits while the second is encouraged to sleep more via counseling sessions on sleep hygienethe bedtime ritual, the bedroom environment… duration 8.5 hours of sleep is recommended. On the other hand, no advice is given concerning dietary intake orphysical activity.
A decrease in calorie intake
The authors looked at two main indicators: sleep duration nocturnal measured with a monitor and the amount of calories absorbed each day measured by a urine test.
In the group that received advice, sleep duration was increased by 1.2 hours per night on average compared to the control group, and energy intake decreased by 270 kcal per day on average in this same group. More interestingly, the decrease in caloric intake was proportional to the increase in sleep duration: the longer the patients slept, the more they reduced their caloric intake in the following day.
In an interesting and original way, the authors have shown here a link between reduced calorie intake and sleep duration. Although the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood, it seems that a good night’s sleep helps regulate appetite the next day. This notion of nocturnal sleep time deserves to be introduced into the programs of obesity prevention. In addition, advice on good sleep hygiene could be integrated into weight loss regimes.
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