Short sleep downfalls & BMI levels

Short sleep duration is closely associated with hormone levels. Reduced Leptin, Elevated Ghrelin, and Increased Body Mass Index, your BMI.

Why is it so necessary important?

Your sleep duration can be an essential regulator when it comes to your body weight and metabolism. There has been a linked association between short habitual sleep time and an increase in someone’s body mass index (BMI). The research was carried out with a large cross-section of population samples. What this showed was there is a potential unknown role on the levels of metabolic hormones.

How were this finding measured and recorded?

The sleep study was carried out collecting data from 1024 volunteers. All participants from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study with a population-based longitudinal study of a variety of sleep disorders. These participants undertook nocturnal polysomnography. A Polysomnography is a technical term for a sleep study. A comprehensive test used to diagnose sleep disorders. During the Polysomnography they record of the following functions were made. Brain waves, the oxygen level in the blood, heart rate,  breathing, and eye and leg movements were occurring during the study. Reporting these details back to the team carrying out the study through questionnaires and sleep diaries. In the morning after having had polysomnography taken samples of fasted blood were taken.

The found these samples had evaluated levels of serum leptin and ghrelin. These are the two critical opposing hormones necessary for regulation of our appetite regulation. Adiponectin, glucose, insulin, and lipid profile were also recorded. The relationships between these hormones measure both the BMI and sleep duration being examined. They use multiple variable regressions paying close attention to confounding factors.  Both habitual and immediately before blood sampling.

What these results showed was

The finding observed a U-shaped curvilinear association between sleep duration and BMI.  Especially when a person had slept less than 8 h (which totaled 74.4% of the sample), showing a definite increase in BMI when there was a proportional decrease in sleep, another association with short sleep was low leptin. (p for slope = 0.01), Showing that there was a predicted 15.5% lowering in leptin for habitual those sleeping 5 hours versus 8 hours. High levels of ghrelin are also recorded. (p for slope = 0.008), showing a predicted 14.9% higher level of ghrelin for nocturnal (polysomnographic) sleep during sleep lasting 5 hours versus 8 hours. These are independent of BMI.

The Conclusion of this is

Participants who had a shorter sleep have reduced leptin and elevated ghrelin levels. When these levels of differences occur in both leptin and ghrelin, there is an increase in appetite. Leading to the possible explanation for the increased BMI levels observed when short sleep duration occurs. Therefore, the study looked at the answers from Western societies and found the following observation. Food is much more widely and readily available. However, chronic sleep restriction is much more common. They believe the appetite change is due to the regulator hormones when curtailment of sleep may contribute to obesity.

Read the full fact here.

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