Sleep yourself slim

The less or worse you sleep, the bigger you get. This is because of the lack of sleep, which has an influence on two hormones that are involved with the appetite. Our advice therefore is : make sure you get enough quality sleep.

Sleep deprivation is no fun and now it even appears that it can make you fatter. That is a conclusion researchers of the universities of Stanford and Wisconsin published in the Public Library of Science (december 2004).

Emmanuel Mignot and colleagues studied the sleep patterns of more than a thousand volunteers, who were followed since 1989 for the so-called Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study. Once every 4 years these volunteers spend a night in a laboratory where some samples of blood are taken and an EEG is registered for the night. Furthermore, they fill out a form with  questions about their sleep habits and they keep a diary.

An interrupted sleep or one that is too short appears to influence the hormone levels of two hormones responsible for the appetite: ghrelin and leptin. Whether you don't sleep enough is a purely personal issue. Some people effectively need less sleep. The hormones are infact each others opposites. Ghrelin, produced in the stomach, stimulates the appetite. The hormone leptin produced by the fat cells, douse the appetite after a good meal. The growth hormone somatotropin mainly produced during the deepsleep is, on the other hand, important for the processing of nutriants: the metabolism.

Not enough sleep for one night seems to seriously upset the subtle balance of both hormones. Researchers compared the hormone levels of volunteers, who slept for 8 hours with those of notorious short sleepers who wake up after 5 hours of sleep.

Churchill was a notorious short sleeper. Coincidence?

Short sleepers had a much higher concentration, upt to 15%, of the appetite inducing ghreline in their blood. Furthermore, the  researchers noticed that they had a less concentration of the appetite repressant leptin (15% less).
The short sleepers woke up more hungry, but with an appetite that is harder to satisfy.

This was quite visible on the scales. Researchers determined the body mass index or BMI, scale for obesity, for all them. Short sleepers showed an average that was 3,6% higher than long sleepers. For a person with a length of 1m74 weighing 70 kilo that means a weight increase of 2 kilo.

Earlier research had already shown that there is a relation between the length of sleep and the appetite hormones ghrelin and leptin, but that only involved small scale studies in strictly controled laboratory circumstances. The researchers emphasize that this correlation was noted thanks to the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study for the first time on a large, long-term scale spot check.

Mignot can see some use in sleep therapy for corpulent people. He seems to think sleep advice could possibly prevent and treat obesity.

The deep sleep and weight balance.

Furthermore , research has shown that the growth hormone somatotropin produced during the deep sleep (phase 3 an especially phase 4) regulates the metabolism and counterproduces the bodyfat.  It certainly isn't just the length of sleep but also the quality of sleep that keeps you slim.

Other studies went even further and showed that a lack of deep sleep during adolescence, has a lasting effect on the metabolism and the weight throughout the entire life. Adults who slept badly during their youth, appeared to have problems later in life with processing nutriants and fats and were noticeably heavier.

It is proven that a 4D-Comfort waterbed has a lot of benefits for your deep sleep.