Sleep Deprived People eat more.... USA Today this morning...

Robin1117

Sleep-deprived people eat 300 more calories a day

Lack of sleep can lead to overeating and obesity.

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

When people are sleep-deprived, they eat almost 300 calories a day more than when they are well-rested. And ice cream is one of their favorite foods to eat when they're tired, a new study shows.
Scientists have known for years that too little shut-eye can lead to weight gain and obesity.

So researchers at Columbia University decided to find out whether people actually consume more when they are sleep-deprived vs. well-rested.

They recruited 26 normal-weight men and women who routinely slept between seven and nine hours a night. The participants came into an inpatient hospital-like setting for six days on two different occasions. Half slept four hours a night for six nights. The other half slept for nine hours a night for six nights.

For the first days, they received a portion-controlled diet, but the last two days they could eat as much as they wanted from food they chose themselves. The entire procedure was repeated a second time with people getting a different amount of sleep.

Findings, reported Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting in Atlanta:

•Participants consumed an average of 296 calories more when they were sleep-deprived compared with when they were well-rested.

•When women were sleep-deprived they ate an average 329 more calories a day vs. when they were well-rested; men ate 263 more calories.

•Overall, most of the extra calories came from high-fat foods such as ice cream and fast foods.

•When women were sleep-deprived, they ate an average of about 31 more fat grams a day. Men's fat intake didn't climb that much.

"Ice cream stood out as the preferred food during the sleep-deprived state," says lead author Marie-Pierre St-Onge, an assistant professor of clinical nutrition medicine at Columbia. "Sleep deprivation makes you more susceptible to overeating, so that can be something to consider when you're trying to lose weight."

This confirms other research that short sleep duration is associated with eating more and could lead to obesity and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, St-Onge says.

She says one other study also found that sleep-deprived adults ate almost 300 calories more a day than those who were well-rested.

St-Onge is still analyzing the data on how the sleep deprivation may affect appetite hormones.

However, other studies show that sleep-deprived people have higher levels of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates hunger, and lower levels of leptin, a fullness hormone, than people who are well-rested.

University of Chicago sleep researcher Eve Van Cauter, a leading expert in this field, says that an additional 300 calories day "is a substantial increase in energy intake that, if maintained chronically, would lead to rapid and robust weight gain."

The reduction in sleep in this study "is pretty drastic but nonetheless occurs in real life under a number of situations, including among medical interns and residents who are known to pack on the pounds," she says.

Gina Lundberg, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association and a preventive cardiologist in private practice in Atlanta, says she thinks it's possible that sleep deprivation provides a "double whammy" for weight gain — that is, people not only eat more when they're tired but also may be less likely to exercise. "When you're tired, you're less motivated to exercise. You just want to go home and go to bed," she says.

Both the higher calorie and fat intake and possibly being less active could be detrimental to your heart over the long term, she adds.

fcrisswell

I am living proof of that!

I think this is the biggest problem for a lot of new mothers out ther trying to lose the "baby weight". The sleep deprivation is killer! Your bod naturally craves extra calories to keep you going. Trying to find a solution to that problem is very hard when even at 7 months old your new baby STILL doesn't want to sleep through the night and wakes several times. Monitoring what I eat and being HONEST about it is where I am at now. Even though I really want to munch later in the evening...keeping track of my foods is right now what is keeping me in check.