28 Aug 2012

Sleep deprivation makes you hungry, say researchers

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Scientists have found a link between lack of sleep and increased appetite. Rosie Brogan reports.

Stress relief & sleep support

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Skipping just one night of proper snooze can alter the way your body responds to sugar, a new international study has found.

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden, King’s College in London and the University of Lubeck in Germany compared responses to food and food imagery after a night of deprivation and after a night of full sleep.

They discovered that missing kip enhances hedonic stimulus processing in the brain, thus driving you to eat more food.

Similarly, a study published in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism found that sleep deprivation alters the way your body metabolises insulin.

The research compared healthy subjects after a four-hour sleep and a full night’s sleep. It reported that our sensitivity to insulin varies depending on how much rest we’ve had.

“Shortened sleep duration is a factor that contributes to glucose intolerance and, even after a single night [of disrupted sleep], to insulin resistance,” they write.

According to the American Diabetes Association, this can increase your risk for conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Unsurprisingly, skipping sleep also diminishes your mental performance. As Mark Mahowald, professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, says: "One complete night of sleep deprivation is as impairing in simulated driving tests as a legally intoxicating blood-alcohol level."

How much sleep do you need?
That depends on your age. Here’s a guide from the Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in the USA:
Newborns: 16–18 hours a day
Preschool-aged children: 11–12 hours a day
School-aged children: At least 10 hours a day
Teenagers: 9–10 hours a day
Adults (including the elderly): 7–8 hours a day

References available on request

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