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Science

Sleep Less, Eat More? 333

Posted by michael from the alarm-clock-deemed-harmful dept.
Ant writes "A study, published Monday, found that people who sleep less tend to be fat, and experts said it's time to find if more sleep will fight obesity. Monday's study from Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk covered 1,000 people and found that total sleep time decreased as body mass index -- a measure of weight based on height -- increased. Men slept an average of 27 minutes less than women and overweight and obese patients slept less than patients with normal weights, it said. In general the fatter subjects slept about 1.8 hours a week less than those with normal weights."
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Sleep Less, Eat More? More

Sleep Less, Eat More?

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  • The obvious? (Score:5, Informative)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:04PM (#11327783) Homepage Journal

    Ummm, yeah. I talked about this in my journal [slashdot.org] some time ago back in November. And yes, I used to run a sleep lab, so I feel validated in commenting on this from a medical perspective. At any rate, there were some serious problems with this study in terms of proper controls, including analysis of sleep disordered breathing (causing sleeplessness) that may in of itself be due to pre existing obesity. However, the simplest explanation could be the obvious one which the original poster commented on in the title and that John Harrison [slashdot.org] also got in a comment in my journal: Sleeping less means more time available for eating! Simple correlative studies are rarely terribly valuable, but on topics as important or as commonly dealt with including obesity, cancer and heart disease always get a fair bit of press.

    Granted, studies with large numbers of people in them tend to be expensive and are the only way to detect small variances in the population, but I often think the money would be better spent on smaller, more thorough, better designed studies with more controls and experimental conditions.

    • From my own body- I'd say it's the other way around, as my eating habits (which aren't the healtiest) combined with my migraine medications have caused obesity-related acid reflux to such an extent that I'm lucky to get 6 hours a night on my normal work schedule- and play "catch up on weekends", which just leads to more obesity since I never get around to exercising.
      • yeah thats what I was thinking; they have the causality round the wrong way. Its being obese which makes one less comfortable asleep which then causes one to sleep less.

        Its not that sleeping more will make a person slim...
      • A Change in diet would probably eliminate the migraines...

        I make this statement because of professional studies (I paid money to an instutution and sat in a classroom with a teacher) in Health, Nutrition, and Acupressure (no not all in one class).

        As for the study:
        "We've put so much emphasis on diet and exercise that we've failed to recognize the value of good sleep," said Fred Turek, a physician at Northwestern University.

        Nutritional I/O aka Diet and Exercise are the foundations of what we can c

    • Re:The obvious? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nbert ( 785663 )
      I think there is an even simpler explanation: Those who sleep not that much/well tend to head for the fridge at night for little "snacks".

      At least that was my first thought when I read the headline...

      • Re:The obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Ying Hu ( 704950 )
        The parent should not be modded all the way to +5 Interesting. Humorous, maybe. The real truth, at least for MY body, is that less sleep, that is, less efficient body functioning, means that my body has to make up the energy somewhere else. Where? With food. If I have plenty of sleep, less food is needed; if I'm running on sleep deficit, I get very hungry; if I'm skipping both food and sleep (very bad, I try to avoid it), I have often gotten sick. I don't know if this has been checked in a wide-scale

    • Re:The obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 ) <tms&infamous,net> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:15PM (#11327974) Homepage
      Sleeping less means more time available for eating!

      Maybe, but I would suspect that stress may play a role: inadequate sleep means a stressed organism. Stress messes with body chemistry in ways that have been linked to obesity - and obesity itself is a stressor, creating a feedback loop. People also often turn to "comfort food" when stressed.

      There have been high-stress low-sleep times in my life when I've tried to substitute food for sleep; fortunately I was aware enough to see what I was doing and restore my old eating habits after the stress had passed and sleep patterns were more normal.

      • Re:The obvious? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Daniel Dvorkin ( 106857 ) *
        More specifically, this is a response which makes perfect sense in evolutionary terms: if you're not sleeping and/or generally stressed, to the caveman brain that means that you're in danger, and danger usually means lean times ahead. Best to stock up on food now, because you're never sure when you might get your next meal. Like an awful lot of primitive responses that make perfect sense in a wild state, this is (obviously) short-circuited by modern society. Er, in First World countries, anyway.
    • However, the simplest explanation could be the obvious one which the original poster commented on in the title and that John Harrison also got in a comment in my journal: Sleeping less means more time available for eating!

      I think that's a little trite. That extra hour of waking life accounts for the feeding which causes obesity? I doubt it. A much more likely explanation is that obese people do not exercise enough.

      I have sleep problems myself. Much of this can be attributed to my lack of physical exertio

    • Re:The obvious? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Max Nugget ( 581772 )
      >> Sleeping less means more time available for eating!

      There is VERY VERY little correlation between eating more food and being more obese because of it. Weight gain has more to do with what you eat, when you eat it, the relationship between what/when you eat and what you do or don't do physically during the day, as well as a host of other factors including stress, body chemistry, genetics, age, metabolism, medications, etc, etc.

      There MAY be a correlation between how much sleep a person gets (and whe
    • obese patients are more likely to experience sleep apnea, which can decrease quality and length of sleep considerably. I find the obesity/sleep apnea link easy to credit for the sleep/BMI link. Here's the first google result I got, there are many many more. [cwru.edu]
    • I've noticed that people/animals with faster metabolisms need to sleep more. I don't know if you've looked into this or not. Although all of my evidence is purely anecdotal, I've found that myself who is rail thin, can eat whatever I want, and am in my mid-twenties - sleeps all the time. I've found the same to be true of other individuals I know who are thin, who I would say has a fast metabolism. Additionally my pet dog, sleeps about 14 hours a day and has a very fast metabolism as well.
    • Both undersleeping and overeating (or eating excessive amounts of high calory foods, such as sweets/candy) may both be symptoms (effects) of other conditions, e.g. depression, anxiety. I.e. they may have a common cause.

      One shouldn't restrict the causality in this result to undersleeping causing weight gain ... or even weight gain causing under-sleeping. Though both of these are possible too.

    • Re:The obvious? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jburroug ( 45317 ) <slashdot AT acerbic DOT org> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @08:22PM (#11328818) Homepage Journal
      Sleeping less means more time available for eating!

      There are other obvious explanations as well, such as getting insuffient rest leads to less energy/motivation to exercise.

      I (in theory) keep a pretty regular workout schedule, running a couple/three times a week and a little light free weight work every other night. When, for whatever reason, I get less sleep than usual the night before I find it very difficult, sometimes impossible, to summon the motivation to get off the couch and go out for my run or pick up the weights. That and when I do win the battle on sleepy days my performance sucks, I lose a couple of reps on the weights or I never feel like I'm hitting my stride when running. And on days where I'm really dragging after work I head right for the high-calorie, easy to prepare option for dinner instead of putting in the effort to make something better for me.

      Of course as some other posters have pointed out the relationship between obesity and sleeplessness could be reversed, it's harder to get a good night sleep when you're obsese because of the other health problems associated with obesity. I'm betting on it being one of those vicous cycle things: it's harder to live healthy when you're not well rested and it's harder to sleep well when you're not living healthy... ad infinitum.

      To add more anecdotal evidence to the argument. When I do get in a good run after work I sleep like a rock and usually go to bed 30-60 minutes earlier. So I'm better rested the next night, which makes it easier to keep working out and eating better, which makes it easier to work out... ad infinitum.

    • I got by on about 2 hours sleep for a little more than ten years.

      Prior to that, I had only gained about 20 pounds in the previous ten years. Since then I've gained about 60 pounds.

      But in July last year I was sick for about a month Since then, I've been sleeping about 6 or more hours a night and don't seem to be gaining additional weight. But I'm not losing it, either.

      Of course, there are far more factors than just sleep to account for.
    • I tend to stay awake till 4cor 5 in the morning.And i sleep no less than 8-10 hours a day.I have been a night owl for almost 3 years now.Any suggestions for coming back to a normal schedule?

      And i sleep like a baby sometimes managing 11-12 hours.Apart from that i have trouble getting out of bed early in the morning even if i have had enough sleep.

    • Sleeping less means more time available for eating!

      Having watched my husbnd put on significant amount of weight from side effects over the recent years as he was put on one medication after another for a condition that has been misdiagnosed as bi-polar disorder (bring on the lithium) and then epilepsy (yah epillium) before finally being identified as severe apnea (less than 4% of sleep time being deep sleep and only 63% oxygen intake) I would have to say comments like that are dangerous simplifactions of

      • Re:The obnoxious? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by BWJones ( 18351 ) *

        My comments were directed more at the study and its weaknesses not on the causes of sleep disorders. If you will notice, I said "At any rate, there were some serious problems with this study in terms of proper controls, including analysis of sleep disordered breathing (causing sleeplessness) that may in of itself be due to pre existing obesity.

        I ran a sleep lab for almost four years before going into basic science research and have seen my share of common sleep apnea and difficult to diagnose sleep disor

  • Misleading headline (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:04PM (#11327794) Journal
    Even the scientists aren't claiming this:


    "We caution that this study does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between restricted sleep and obesity (but) investigations demonstrating success in weight loss via extensions of sleep would help greatly to establish such a relationship."


    Noting that states A and B appear to have a mutual relationship does not mean that A implies B, it could just as easily mean that B implies A, or even that the statistics are skewed by something else...

    If it turns out that fat people have more trouble sleeping than thin ones, then they would sleep less, but trying to force them to sleep more (drugs perhaps) would not necessarily decrease their weight...

    Simon

    • True to an extent (Score:2, Interesting)

      by dolo666 ( 195584 )
      If it turns out that fat people have more trouble sleeping than thin ones, then they would sleep less, but trying to force them to sleep more (drugs perhaps) would not necessarily decrease their weight...

      This is slightly true, but you're missing a key factor. Many more people have Obstructive Sleep Apnea than currently are being treated for it, and among those who are being treated, many are still suffering from sleep loss due to throat obstruction. This obstruction was thought to have been caused by obes
    • That's it, I'm going to bed early tonight. No more staying up until 2am on IRC and getting up at 5am to go to work.
    • Most things in nature aren't just simple causalities expressed in ten words or less. For example, in chemistry, chemicals A and B don't always react to each other in the same way; results vary according to temperatures, catalysts, charge, etc.

      Maybe some day people will actually realize that we are all different. Maybe some people are obese due to apnea, and others have apnea due to obesity. I think it's more likely that apnea and obesity are both huge risk factors to anyone's overall health, and would cont

  • Well, Obviously... (Score:4, Funny)

    by still_sick ( 585332 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:05PM (#11327797)
    The more time you spend asleep - the fewer hours there are to spend eating!

    Where's my reserach grant?

  • uh oh, here it comes (Score:4, Funny)

    by frogger01 ( 806562 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:05PM (#11327798) Journal
    now all the crazy fat mcdonalds eating american fatties are going to be sleeping in, but instead of being lazy, they'll be 'on diets'

  • Sleep Apnea (OSA) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dolo666 ( 195584 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:05PM (#11327799) Journal
    I have sleep apnea and I will testify before you all that because of significant sleep deprivation during my youth, I had to eat foods that were:

    a) Rich in sugar or grease
    b) Fast and easy to prepare

    If these conditions aren't met, I could not function very well, even with CPAP.

    I was born with an unusually narrow throat, and I spent most of my early childhood as a beanpole -- I was super skinny. But after years of chronic apnea, due to the OSA, I slowly grew... and then suddenly I became super-sized.

    I would daydream in class (ie: getting my waking REM), and even fall asleep during lectures.

    I had zero energy, so I drank a pot of coffee in the morning and one in the afternoon, along with cigarettes to speed my heart up and get me going. I could never have graduated from school without doing this. Society requires that everyone must perform at a uniformed level, unless you have a disability, but my disability was never discovered until I was 30yrs. That's 30yrs of health slippage....

    The point is... people with sleeping disorders need to have the disorders fixed, but the current CPAP machines are really not a solution -- they aren't ready to combat the seasons properly and they are horrible for people with dust allergies.

    Until a solution for apnea is found and people realize that being overweight is not the cause, but a symptom -- people with apnea and other sleeping disorders won't be very healthy (mentally, emotionally or physically).
    • I'm not doubting your story, just curious. How did lack of sleep force you to eat foods that were fast and easy to prepare or eat high fat foods? As a child I would think the first 17-18 years of your life would have your meals somewhat dictated by your parent's cooking choices, and even after that the fast food thing doesn't really make sense.

      • I'll explain... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dolo666 ( 195584 )
        How did lack of sleep force you to eat foods that were fast and easy to prepare or eat high fat foods?

        I never became fat until I went to university and had to fend for myself. Up until that point I was literally dragged everywhere by my parents, who thought I was just a lazy kid. I can remember several times in my early youth when I would be dreaming in class with my eyes open, and I can also remember being numb from pins and needles while in gym class. Oh and I'd get dizzy alot too. All these are signs o
        • Ugh: sleep lab. My wife went in for a sleep study one night last year. She hardly slept a wink just because of all the bloody wires attached in particular to her head. She swore she'd never go in for one of those again it was so unpleasant.

          As for napping: many many people could benefit from that. Unfortunately most western and in particular anglo societies frown upon it. Some people (myself included) can take a 15-20 minute nap and be really really refreshed. Some people can't though :( Any longer t
    • I agree with you, disorders like sleep apnea are a terrible problem. My mother has suffered from sleep apnea for years, and it has correlated with a significant weight gain and general decrease in healthiness. Mind you, I don't know the cause/effect between sleep apnea and weight gain. My mother was overweight before, but became much more overweight as he sleep suffered more. The CPAP machine has helped her, and it makes a huge difference in how she feels and acts after a good night's sleep.

    • Re:Sleep Apnea (OSA) (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Your description of falling asleep in lectures sound like classic symptoms of insulin overload from foods high in sugar. You should really see a nutritionist and start exercising, it may sound hard, but I also have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, yet easily been able to keep my BMI around 22 by eating wisely and exercising daily.
    • I had a fairly large coworker with sleep apnea. A few years ago I met him again about a year after he had surgery for it. He lost a massive amount of wait.
    • Having read some of the replies to your post, let me extend my sympathies--there are some true jerks in the woods, and you have real (and serious) condition.

      I have gained a lot of weight since I had children, for the exact reason you mention--lack of sleep. When the kids wake me up 5 - 8 (or more) times in a night (sick, nightmares, etc), I don't feel rested, and then to keep myself going, I eat a LOT of snack foods (chocolate being my favorite). These provide the energy I need, but also are very fatteni

  • I got out of bed for this?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:05PM (#11327800) Homepage Journal
    Wake me when I'm thin.
  • Of course there could be the confound that people who have healthier sleeping habits also have healthier eating habits. But it's worth looking into.
  • because they are up getting midnight snacks while the rest of us are snoring?

  • Coritsol and stress (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:06PM (#11327828) Homepage Journal
    There are some studies that link high cortisol levels (due to stress) with an increased chance of obesity.

    Could it be simply that people who got enough sleep were less stressed?
    • That occurred to me, too. I mean, not just cortisol, but stress in general tends to cause insomnia and over-eating, both of which (in our society) lead to more stress. Plus there's the whole biological issue of stress causing bad weight gain (fat in less-healthy places), which IIRC is what you're referring to with cortisol.

  • zerg (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:06PM (#11327831) Homepage
    If you're interested in all things sleep, there's a new blog called Circadiana [blogspot.com] about that sort of stuff.

  • Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 )
    and experts said it's time find if more sleep will fight obesity.

    What? "it's time find"??

  • Listen to your body to stay healthy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:06PM (#11327836) Homepage
    I'm sure there are other factors in this (maybe the people sleep less because they're busy, and therefore eat a lot of fast food, etc). However, I've become convinced that staying slim and otherwise in good health/shape is largely a result of listening to what our bodies tell us.

    You know, how it feels good after you exercise a bit? Or how it hurts to overeat? How you're tired when you don't sleep enough?

    I'm doing the South Beach diet right now, and really it's just about teaching yourself to eat right again (it's not a low-carb diet like a lot of people think it is). The big thing of it for me is that this is all stuff I knew -- eat three meals a day, don't pig out, sugar and processed flour are bad for you, etc -- but I'd just forgotten.

  • Exercise and Sleep (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mudd Chick ( 207628 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:08PM (#11327857) Homepage
    Some of it might have to do with the relationship between obesity and lack of exercise. When I am on a regular exercise regime, I find myself forced to sleep 7 or 8 hours a night rather than 5 or 6 -- otherwise I feel completely exhausted. Sedentary people may be able to get by on less sleep than the physically active.
    • I sleep 1-2 hours less when exercising. So its time "pays for itself" plus makes me feel better the other 17 hours. I suspect deep breathing and increased blood flow flushes away toxins, especially from a tired brain.

  • Repeat after me, everyone (Score:3, Informative)

    by netrat ( 104221 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:08PM (#11327861)
    I didn't RTFA, but I want to get a quick soundbyte in anyhow.

    Repeat after me:

    Correlation =! Causation

    Sank you!
    • Correlation =! Causation

      Correct! Correlation = Conspiracy! I don't know how, but somehow Bush or Al Qaeda or the French or Israel are causing us to get fat and lose sleep! Hey, maybe they're all in it together!

      • Woah there...

        Bush, Israel, and Al-Quaeda cause loss of sleep.

        The French cause obesity. Primarily throught their main weapons, French Fries. French toasts also are a culprit in many areas.

        Get your enemies straight, man!

        (btw, I am French. Mouaaaaahahahahahah!)
    • netrat you usurping rodent. Stop trying to make everyone part of some group consciousness by repeating things. Leave that for my sig.

      And while i'm at it, you forget this is /. where the fact that as you correctly point out, Correlation =! Causation, has no bearing whatsoever and posters are free to concoct implausible theories based on the most spurious speculation.

      As an ex girlfriend used to wonder how she put on weight becase she ate like a bird, "Yes" I would agree, "a pterodactyl"

  • This is easily explained, actually. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Xaroth ( 67516 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:08PM (#11327865) Homepage
    Without having read TFA, I can already say that this is fairly obvious if you think about it.

    When you start to get tired, you feel low-energy. When you feel low-energy, you eat "quick energy" foods - those that are readily metabolized and high in calories. It's your body saying "Oh, crap! We don't have enough energy right now! Do something about it!" (This is due to falling glucose levels in the brain as you get tired, but I'm sure that's covered in TFA.)

    Of course, you don't really need the energy, you need sleep. The result is that you take in waaay more calories than your body actually uses. The more sleep deprived you are, the more this happens.

    It makes me wonder if there's a causal relationship between the decreasing amount of sleep your average American (and, indeed, member of any industrialized nation) gets and the increases seen in obesity.
    • Umm... on the physical discomfort bit: My mother mentioned once that when you're dehydrated you tend to mistake the need for water for a need for food and act accordingly. Also, I've noticed that when I'm dehydrated I sleep less as I feel like I need to drink more fluids. Maybe obesity isnt caused by a lack of sleep, but actually a lack of water? Maybe I should drink more water so that I'm not such an enormous fat ass. There's gotta be some ancient subconscious reaction in The Foraging Creature which requir
      • you need to privatize the water industry, and place cocacola in a water-monopoly position(*shudder*) through government grants, and then make water access mandatory in all buildings larger than a given size. Bonus if you put provigil or something in the water.

  • OK People, LISTEN UP: (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:09PM (#11327876)
    There is no magic bullet for losing weight. The only thing that works is a life long commitment to excercise and a proper diet. Atkins will probably cut years of your life and any fat absorbsion reducing pill is just going to give you greasy shits and destroy liver.

    Studies show this, this diet seems to be working that. Well, next year studies are going to show this and that are actually harmful.

    Eat more veggies, eat no fast food and walk and take the stairs. That is the least you can do for yourselves. You should do a lot more.
    • There is no magic bullet, but there are a lot of little things you can do.

      Eat three meals a day to prevent hunger causing you to binge at one. Drink more water to maintain your metabolism. Have planned snacks during the day to keep your blood sugar up (reduces cravings and, again, maintains your metabolism). Switch to reduced-fat versions of high-fat items. Drink diet soda to cut calories. Limit caffine (horror!). Eat whole grains instead of white flour-based bread items. Cook for yourself more so you kno

    • Q: How do people get fat?
      A: They eat too much.

      Q: How can you stop getting fat?
      A: Don't eat so much.
  • I love sleep and eating! Don't make me choose!
  • Considering I average 5.5 hours of sleep per day. However, I run 3 miles per day eat only two meals and drink lots of water and caffeine and weigh 155 lbs. Did they include someone like me in the study? Of course not. Geez, most studies are designed to prove the intent of those performing the study - not get actual objective information.

  • Misplaced Datapoint (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sameerdesai ( 654894 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:13PM (#11327929)
    I must be misplaced datapoint. I am fat and I like to sleep whole day. yummm sleep!!!
  • I would think that having a great big gut would make sleeping uncomfortable, since the mass of your gut would either weigh down your your vitals (if you sleep on your back), or keep you from laying flat (if you sleep on your belly).

    Then again, I am not a doctor.

    END COMMUNICATION

  • Oooh, cause and effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:13PM (#11327945)
    The article mentions, correctly, that this does imply any cause-effect relationship. As a bit of a health nut, here are some of the possibilities I have thought of regarding the relationsip between sleep and being overweight/unhealthy:
    • People with irregular daily routines might not sleep as much as they need to, and similarly, may skip meals or snack excessively which is known to lead to unhealthy weights
    • Stressful lifestyles both impact sleep cycles, and one's diet and exercise routine (stress leading to unhealthiness)
    • People who are overweight may have trouble sleeping due to breathing difficulties, or other discomforts arising from a general lack of good health
    • People who are well disciplined may be better at adhering to exercise and healthy eating routines, and similarly, sticking to proper sleeping patterns and allocating enough hours for a good night's sleep.
  • people with more free time are able to do a number of things that others can't do; exercise, spend more time cooking healthy dinners, and above all - sleep. On the other hand, those with less free time (due to having less income, higher stress, more problems to deal with, etc) have less time for exercise, cooking healthy dinners, and above all - sleep.

    Good thing I forced my middle-classed self to cook healthy organic dinners, exercise, and etc - despite the free time. Pays off, really.

  • or ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by memoryband ( 847617 )
    people who live a lifestyle that results in less sleep
    are also prone to making bad eating decisions ie. the busy
    guy that grabs fast food every day?

    While I am definitely in favor of any study that could
    be used to justify sleeping more (hooray for sleep),

    "less sleep = fatness" seems like a bit of a leap.

  • No kidding (Score:3, Interesting)

    by daveo0331 ( 469843 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:17PM (#11328001) Homepage Journal
    Think back to the last time you did an all-night coding session. What kind of food did you eat? Those vending machines don't exactly sell health food.

    For non-nerdy types (and many nerds too) -- think back to your last all-night drinking session. Beer is full of fat and carbs, and the pizza and junk food that goes along with it is pretty fattening too.

    And regardless of why you're up late at night, if you go out to eat, the only restaurants open an 2 in the morning are Taco Bell and Denny's.

    • Re:No kidding (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Abcd1234 ( 188840 )
      Beer is full of fat and carbs

      Fat?!? Dude, you really need to rethink your choice of beer if you're getting a significant portion of your beer calories from fat. The calories in beer come from two things: sugars extracted from the mash, and the alcohol itself (which, has a very high caloric density, second only to fat).
    • There's no fat in beer. About a trillion calories, but no fat.
  • The two are probably correlated because they indicate a certain type of lifestyle. If you are so busy that you dont have enough time to get a full night's sleep, you probably also don't have time to prepare healthy meals or exercise properly. They are probably eating out more, snacking more, and excercising less. Put them together, and yeah, the people that get less sleep are probably going to be fatter.
  • It makes sense that people who get insufficient sleep will tend to be overweight. When a person is tired their body sends signals that it needs more energy which leads them to eat. In addition, when a person is tired, they tend to make poor decisions and/or go for the "quick energy" solution (400 calorie candy bar instead of 100 calorie piece of fruit, for example).

  • Other studies: link between sleeping and eating (Score:3, Informative)

    by discontinuity ( 792010 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:24PM (#11328091)

    Other studies provide evidence that there is a link between les sleep and increased calorie intake. I remember reading a summary of a couple of studies to this effect in the NYTimes. It was in the NYTimes Health section on 14 Dec 2004 (available now only through their archive $ervice). Google gave the the following from this [netrition.com] site. It appears to be a similar writeup.

    Curb Your Craving - Sleep It Off

    2004 December 19

    CUTTING out sleep appears to make it harder to cut out calories, two studies released recently suggest.

    In a study, published in The Annals of Internal Medicine, 12 test subjects were restricted to four hours of sleep two nights in a row.

    Their levels of a hormone that increases appetite rose by 28 per cent while a hormone that suppresses it fell by 18 per cent. At the same time, the subjects, 12 young men, reported increases in their desire for food, particularly for high-calorie, high-carbohydrate choices.

    No such changes occurred when the men got extra sleep.

    The other study, published in The Public Library of Science/ Medicine, the online journal, found that those who slept an average five hours or less a night had 15 per cent less of the appetite- suppressing hormone than people who slept for eight hours, and 15 per cent more of the appetite- stimulating hormone.

    The lead author of the first study, Dr Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago had this advice for people trying to lose weight, based on the results of her experiment: "If you run a sleep debt, pay it; if you are sleep-deprived, you will crave high-carb foods and will need an iron will to resist. If you can't resist, increase physical activity to burn the calories."

    No author is given for the article.

  • get more exercise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by caviare ( 830421 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:29PM (#11328151)
    That there is a correlation between getting enough exercise and being of normal weight is well known. Isn't there also a correlation between being getting enough exercise and sleeping well? Wouldn't these two correlations explain the observed results? "Get more exercise then you'll both lose weight and sleep better" seems more likely to me to be causal relationships, than "try and sleep better and then you'll lose weight".

  • Sugar is the Real Culprit (Score:4, Interesting)

    by stankulp ( 69949 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:34PM (#11328204) Homepage
    All of the fad diets that actually worked over the past two or three decades have one thing in common: DON'T EAT SUGAR.

    The "Eat to Win" diet of the '80s was a high carbohydrate, low protein, moderate fat diet that worked. The guy who invented it was Martina Natrilova's trainer, and it worked for her.

    The Atkins diet is just the opposite, low carbohydrate, moderate fat and high protein, and it works too.

    Both these diets work as long as the dieter actually follows them.

    The one thing they have in common is DON'T EAT SUGAR. Don't drink sugary caffeinated beverages. Don't eat ice cream. Don't eat candy bars. Don't eat donuts.

    The really bad thing is that eating sugar makes you hungry.

    It's not rocket science, but it's harder than Hell to give up sweets if you have a sweet tooth.

  • Experts said it's time find if more sleep will fight obesity.

    A waste of time and money - I'm living proof it won't. :)

  • I only sleep a couple of hours per night and I'm a beanstalk.
    Maybe I'm the exception to "the rule."
  • Here's my theory.

    Some people drink lots of caffeine. Caffeine tends to keep you awake, and it also raises blood cortisol levels. Elevated cortisol is strongly linked with weight gain. Thus, the two conditions "less sleep" and "weight gain" might both stem from a third factor, namely, excessive intake of caffeine.

    When I stopped drinking caffeine last year my weight plummeted. I started again in the winter, and my weight is increasing again.

    • Elevated cortisol is strongly linked with weight gain.

      Is it? Or have you been listening to AM radio or watching late night television again? Dr Talbot? Is that you?

      --
      Evan

  • New Slashdot Poll Suggestion (Score:3, Interesting)

    by m_evanchik ( 398143 ) <michel_evanchikATevanchik...net> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:53PM (#11328457) Homepage

    Suggestion for the new slashdot poll:

    "My Body Mass Index [nhlbisupport.com] (BMI) is:

    0-15

    15-18

    18-20

    20-25

    25-30

    30-35

    cowboy neal

    For the record, I am a fatso with a BMI of 31.

  • The post says they sleep 1.8 hours less a week. A week. Thats .25 hours a day or around 15 minutes. All they found out is that fat people sleep 15 minutes less a day than thin people. I hardly think this suggests that fat people need less sleep than thin people because they do less.
  • ... scientists found that obesity tends to induce sleeplessness
  • people who are obese do not sleep well.

    I worked at the Medical College of Ohio (Toledo) in the Sleep Disorders Center for 5 years to finance my undergraduate college education, which is in Biochemistry, so I know enough to explain exactly what is really happening with sleep deprivation and obesity.

    For whatever reasons people start to gain weight, eating poorly such as McDonalds, Burger King, etc... you start to gain weight from foods that are rich in calories, but poor in nutrition. The average fast fo
  • is an actual proverb in French ( Qui dort dîne [google.com]).

  • For some, both derive from a root cause (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nygard ( 3896 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @10:54PM (#11330399) Homepage
    People who don't have time to get enough sleep probably don't have time to exercise, either.

  • Of course they sleep less - they keep getting up to raid the fridge!
  • Fat people sleep less because they get less sex... you know... that activity you do in bed?

    Who am I kidding here. This is slashdot...
  • Maybe seriously overweight people don't sleep well? Maybe they don't breath as well, or can't get comfortable.

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