• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
nutrition health writer

Thinking Nutrition

For the latest nutrition research and controversies

  • Home
  • About
  • Podcast
  • Blog
    • Allergies
    • Cancer
    • Child Health
    • Collagen
    • Diabetes
    • Eating Well
    • Getting Active
    • Gut Health
    • Heart Health
    • Inflammation
    • Managing Weight
    • Mental Health
    • Mythbusting
    • Nutrition Supplements
    • Women?s Health
  • In the Media
  • Services
  • Contact
  • Search
You are here: Home / Managing Weight / Can lack of sleep make you fat?

Can lack of sleep make you fat?

May 8, 2013 by Tim Crowe Leave a Comment

lack of sleep
294/365 by marie-ll. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

One of the more surprising factors linked to weight gain is lack of sleep. More and more research studies are finding that poor sleep patterns and insufficient sleep are closely linked to weight gain and obesity. And now yet another clinical study has confirmed the growing body of evidence linking inadequate sleep to obesity.

The mechanism linking poor sleep to weight gain is not entirely understood, but is likely related to how signals from the brain which control appetite are altered by sleep restriction. Inadequate sleep can alter the levels of the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin while reducing production of the fullness-feeling hormone leptin. This can lead to increased food consumption without a similar increase in energy expenditure.

Much of the sleep research though has involved either observational studies looking at habitual sleep patterns and body weight, or single-night studies done in a controlled sleep laboratory. Now researchers have extended the research to look at how 5 nights of poor sleep can affect energy expenditure and hormone levels with the results published in the journal PNAS.

Sixteen healthy adults took part in the study. Their average normal night’s slumber was just over 8 hours and all were at a healthy body weight with no heavy users of alcohol or caffeine and none were taking medications.

The sleep deprivation conditions involved making participants wait 2 hours past their normal bedtime before being allowed to sleep and rousing them from their slumber 2 hours earlier than normal. This was repeated for 5 days in a row under controlled laboratory conditions where energy expenditure, diet and blood tests were carefully monitored.

The poor sleep patterns did result in a small increase in energy expenditure of around 5% which at first blush seems positive. Yet this was more than offset by a higher amount of food eaten, especially after dinner at night time, which caused an average weight gain of 0.82 kg over just 5 days.

What surprised the researchers was that changes in hormone levels were in favour of blunting food intake, yet despite this, overeating still occurred. One theory to explain this is that it was the change in the circadian rhythm resulting in more hours of wakefulness that altered the normal eating pattern.

Showing that weight gain is not set in stone, when the participants reverted back to a normal sleep pattern, they ate less food and a small amount of weight loss seen.

A nice article here explores the top 10 myths about sleeping – clinging to bad habits and buying into sleep myths can keep you perpetually tired

What it all means

Sleep plays an important part in energy metabolism. Disruption of a healthy sleep cycle can throw the body out of kilter, resulting in more food eaten and more weight gained. For someone that is struggling to control their weight, it may pay to look more closely at how they prioritise quality sleep in their life.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit

Filed Under: Managing Weight Tagged With: obesity, overeating, sleep, weight gain

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Connect with Me

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Sign up for Updates

Loading

Most Popular Posts

  • Broccoli is bad for you, like, really toxic bad
  • Arthritis relief: can collagen supplements help?
  • Lemon water: is it worth the squeeze or just sour hype?
  • Collagen supplements: a promising aid in tendon repair
  • Creatine loading shows promise in diabetes

Get the book

Now in its fifth edition, Understanding Nutrition is the leading text used in nutrition and dietetics courses in Australia and New Zealand. As one of the coauthors, I step you through core topics such as diet planning, macronutrients, vitamins and minerals and follow this with chapters on diet and health, sports nutrition, lifespan nutrition and food safety.

Footer

Privacy policy

Terms of use

Creative Commons License
All content on Thinking Nutrition by Dr Tim Crowe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and can be reused with attribution.