Women who fail to get enough shut-eye each night risk gaining weight, a Cleveland-based researcher reported at a medical conference in San Diego today.
In a long-term study of middle-aged women, those who slept 5 hours or less each night were 32 percent more likely to gain a significant amount of weight (adding 33 pounds or more) and 15 percent more likely to become obese during 16 years of follow-up than women who slept 7 hours each night.
This level of weight gain — 15 kg, or 33 pounds — is “very clinically significant in terms of risk of diabetes and heart disease,” Dr. Sanjay Patel of Case Western Reserve University told Reuters Health.
Women who slept 6 hours nightly were 12 percent more likely to experience major weight gain and 6 percent more likely to become obese compared with those who slept 7 hours each night.
After accounting for the influence of age and weight at the beginning of the study, women who slept 5 hours or less each night gained about 2.3 pounds more during follow-up than those who slept 7 hours nightly. Women who got 6 hours of shut-eye each night gained 1.5 pounds more than those who slept 7 hours nightly.
“We actually found that women who slept less, ate less,” Patel said. “In terms of exercise, we saw a small difference in that women who slept less exercised slightly less than women who slept more but it didn’t explain the magnitude of our findings,” Patel said.
All in all, it seems that diet and exercise are not accounting for the weight gain in women who sleep less, Patel concluded.
SLEEP PLAYS A BIG ROLE IN YOUR WEIGHT LEVELS, STRESS, DEPRESSION AND MANY OTHER GENERAL HEALTH ISSUES. 7 OR MORE HOURS AT LEAST AND 8-10 HOUR MAY NOT BE BAD IN SOME CASES. SLEEP DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOU WELL-BEING
DR. BENZINGER
