As little as 30-minutes of sleep loss per day throughout the work week can have long-term consequences for the human body’s weight and metabolism, according to the preliminary findings of a new study.
The study, which was scheduled to be presented on Thursday at the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in sunny San Diego, was authored by a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, Shahrad Taheri.
Taheri was quoted by WebMD as having said that the study’s findings suggest that avoiding sleep loss could have a positive impact on weight loss and metabolism. Subsequently, he noted that the incorporation of sleep into lifestyle interventions for weight loss as well as diabetes might also see benefit.
While previous studies have shown that short sleep duration is associated with obesity and diabetes, we found that as little as 30 minutes a day sleep debt can have significant effects on obesity and insulin resistance at follow up […] This reinforces earlier observations that sleep loss is additive and can have metabolic consequences. […] Sleep loss is widespread in modern society, but only in the last decade have we realized its metabolic consequences […] Our findings suggest that avoiding sleep debt could have positive benefits for waistlines and metabolism, and that incorporating sleep into lifestyle interventions for weight loss and diabetes might improve their success
Obesity translates into an excess of body fat. Being overweight implies one’s weight is greater than what’s considered healthy, however, it takes into account the weight of muscle, bone, fat, and body water, whereas obesity is merely a measurement of body fat. Those who are obese are at increased risk of heart disease, stroke, arthritis, some cancers and diabetes, according to MedlinePlus.
Researchers studied a total of 522 patients who had been freshly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The patients were randomly assigned to usual care, increased exercise, or a combination of diet and exercise.
In the beginning, those with inadequate sleep throughout the week were 72 percent more likely to be obese than those who received adequate sleep.
After six months, researchers deducted from the data that patients with insufficient sleep were more apt to suffer from obesity and blood sugar problems and according to researchers, all it took was half an hour of lost sleep during the weekdays.
A year later, the risk of obesity was increased by 17 percent and insulin resistance by 39 percent for every 30-minutes of sleep debt.
In other recent health coverage pertaining to weight loss here on Immortal News, researchers studying the effects of a oxytocin nasal spray, which delivers a synthetic production of the love hormone known as Syntocinon, have found a connection between oxytocin and male weight loss. It appears to improve the way the human body handles blood sugar; virtually the opposite affect of sleep debt’s weight gain and diminished insulin resistance.
