Sleepless nights can make you pile on pounds
DON’T skip the kip, as a lack of sleep makes us heavier – adding dangerous unseen fat around the organs, scientists revealed.
And it affects everyone, regardless of age, health or size, says a study.
Lack of shut-eye added fat around stomachs as people ate more. It also added dangerous internal visceral fat which produces hormones and chemicals that harm organs and boosts the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
More than a third of adults routinely do not get enough sleep, in part due to shift work and smart devices being used late into the night.
But catching up on lost sleep did not shift the harmful fat gained.
People who get around four hours a night are at risk of a “significant increase” in fat, scientists found.
Less time asleep led to a nine per cent increase in the abdominal fat area and an 11 per cent rise in abdominal visceral fat.
The study, in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, compared those on nine hours at night to those on just four.The second group ate more than 300 extra calories per day, with about 17 per cent more fat. The consumption boost was highest in the early days of sleep loss.
Dr Virend Somers, at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said: “Shortened sleep, even in young, healthy lean subjects, is associated with a rise in calorie intake, a very small increase in weight and a significant increase in fat inside the belly.
“Inadequate sleep appears to redirect fat to the more dangerous visceral compartment.
“These findings implicate inadequate sleep as a contributor to the epidemics of obesity, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.”