"Sleep Better, Lose Weight?" - Dennis Thompson

People plagued by insomnia who began sleeping more cut the amount of sugary foods they tended to eat, an experiment at King's College London revealed. U.S. experts said the findings show that sleep can foster healthier eating habits. For the study, researchers recruited 42 people who habitually got less than seven hours of sleep a night. Half of the people received a 45-minute personalized sleep consultation, which provided them with tips to improve their sleep. The goal was to extend their sleep by as much as an hour and a half each night. The other half received no advice and served as the control group. Nearly 9 in 10 of the people who received advice increased their sleep time during the week, anywhere from 52 minutes to about an hour and a half. No significant changes in sleep patterns occurred among those in the control group. Those folks who got more sleep wound up with a 10-gram reduction in their daily intake of added sugars, the researchers found. People with insomnia tend to develop lack of inhibition due to their sleeplessness, said Andrew Varga, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine, pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "It just becomes harder to resist certain foods and other things you ordinarily would know you shouldn't indulge in," Dr. Varga said. "You're more likely to act on your base impulses."

- Andrew W. Varga, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
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