After reading the past posts dealing with sleep and health, I started to look at other resources on the subject. With my current sleep schedule of only getting about 5 hours per night, due to work, schedule school and a early bird daughter, I have experienced the increase stress level and mood swings this article discusses not only in myself but with my wife. I just thought some follow up reading might be interesting to others. I cannot really remember the last time I saw eight hours of sleep, I think I will try and do that more often.
The downside of running on empty
Scientists are finding more evidence that sleep deprivation can affect appetite, weight gain, diabetes risk, the strength of your immune system, and even your chance of developing depression.
In 2004, University of Chicago researchers restricted a group of men to only 4 hours of sleep per night. After just 2 nights, the men had an 18 percent decrease in leptin, a hormone that tells your brain when you are full, and a 28 percent increase in ghrelin, a hormone that triggers hunger. These results were reinforced last October by a study of almost 10,000 adults that found that people who slept fewer than 7 hours a night were more likely to be obese than those who got 7 hours of shut-eye. "
Chronic sleep deprivation causes changes in metabolism that produce a state that stimulates hunger," Epstein explains. Sleep deprivation can also affect how your body handles insulin; insulin resistance puts you at risk for weight gain and diabetes.
In a study that's still under way, Van Cauter and her colleagues are looking at chronic sleep loss in a group of normal-weight men and women under age 30. Over 6 months, those who slept fewer than 6.5 hours a night were more insulin-resistant than normal sleepers who logged 7.5 to 8 hours per night.
The short sleepers, the study shows so far, need to produce 30 to 40 percent more insulin to dispose of the same amount of glucose. Still other studies suggest that over time, sleep loss may play a role in the development of depression.
Find the complete article here.
