CAN BEING SHORT ON SLEEP MAKE YOU FAT?

Previous research has shown that acute sleep disruption can result in increased appetite and insulin resistance and that people who regularly get less than six hours of sleep a night are more likely to be obese and diabetic.

Short sleep and chronic conditions – such as diabetes and obesity – are linked, but it’s not entirely clear whether short sleep is causing the propensity for obesity, or whether the obesity causes the propensity for too little sleep.

New research conducted by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine shows that being overweight can cause poor sleep.

“We think that sleep is a function of the body trying to conserve energy in a setting where energetic levels are going down. Our findings suggest that if you were to fast for a day, we would predict you might get sleepy because your energetic stores would be depleted,” said study co-author Dr David Raizen, an associate professor of neurology and member of the Chronobiology and Sleep Institute in the School of Medicine.