BWJones's Journal: Too little sleep makes you fat?

Well, judging from the number of articles that are getting posted, people are fascinated with the prospect of sleep and obesity. Judging from my own experiment with lack of sleep, I should weigh 400lbs as opposed to my 175lbs.

I believe what these studies are relatively simple correlative studies and are missing controls for sleep disorders such as sleep disordered breathing or sleep apnea. When I was running a sleep lab, we saw the incidence of sleep apnea skyrocketing with obesity, a trend commonly accepted for a number of reasons. So, are these studies finding something new? Or are these studies simply observing that those with sleep disordered breathing sleep less?

studies

[blinder]

i remember many years ago... listening to Dr. Dean Edell's show... he had this great little commentary regarding studies. I'm sure you've heard something similar... but there goes.

The doctor said he could commission a "study" and prove beyond any doubt that eating carrots cause car accidents.

All he had to do was, spend a month or so at an ER, and surveying all those that were in car accidents and find out how many had eaten carrots within 24 hours of their accident... thus drawing the very reasonable conc

More time sleeping = less time eating

[John Harrison]

that is all

Just correlation

[Otter]

I agree with you that correlation is the likeliest cause but I doubt if it's anything as complicated as you're suggesting. When you work a week of really long hours, you eat terribly, right? You snack, you eat junk food, you don't eat meals, you don't eat vegetables, you eat at odd hours, right? Doesn't surprise me that people with rough schedules gain weight.

JFC on a stick

[rdewald]

Even researchers that should know better are trying to isolate a cause for obesity. Take it from a 400lb (well, 371 lb) guy. Obesity is not caused by something you can test scientifically, period.

I got a hypothesis for ya: People who sleep less than 4 hours per night aren't taking good care of themselves. People who don't take good care of themselves (a) overeat, (b) answer health questionaires without a rigorous attention to honest self-disclosure. Where's my PhD from Columbia?

Obesity is a phenomeno

Re:JFC on a stick

[BWJones]

I absolutely agree with you. This is why I said, "I believe what these studies are relatively simple correlative studies and are missing controls for sleep disorders such as sleep disordered breathing or sleep apnea.". Simple correlative studies.......I should have added other reasons as well, including the automobile, easily available highly processed food, increasing work hours and responsibilities leading to less personal time, depression related to those issues and others. My point, and what I intend