Originally published October 20 2005
A good night's sleep could help you lose weight
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A study of 323 men and 417 women in Quebec showed that participants who slept longer were often leaner than those who got only five to six hours of sleep.
Getting a good night's rest could help you lose weight.
Eight hours of sleep per night might be ideal, researchers report.
They studied 323 men and 417 women in Canada's Quebec province.
Those who reported sleeping seven to eight hours per night were leaner than those who noted five or six hours of nightly sleep.
The study was presented at the North American Association for the Study of Obesity's annual scientific meeting held in Vancouver, Canada.
The researchers included Jean-Philippe Chaput, a doctoral candidate in kinesiology at Laval University in Quebec City.
Participants completed surveys about their sleep habits.
They also took blood tests that screened for leptin, a hormone involved in regulating hunger.
The researchers estimated how much leptin participants should have, based on body fat.
Leptin is a hormone that is made predominately in fat cells.
The amount of leptin in the blood is proportional to the amount of body fat.
However, most obesity is characterized by resistance to leptin and its appetite-suppressing effect.
Participants who reported less sleep tended to have lower leptin levels than predicted.
That might mean that their bodies weren't using leptin very efficiently.
So it's not as simple as saying, "Less sleep, less leptin, more hunger, more eating, more weight, more fat."
Instead, it may be more like a jumbled knot -- tackle one thread, and another may bunch up.
So sleep may not fix weight problems all by itself.
Don't expect it to overrule the calories you eat and burn during the day.
But there are still plenty of reasons to get enough sleep.
For starters, driving while drowsy is a hazard to yourself and everyone on the road.
That dragged-out feeling can dull your entire day, too.
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