Sleep clues to obesity
Tuesday March 25th, 2014
Good sleep may be one of the key factors in preventing obesity and diabetes, researchers say today.
Two
different studies highlight the benefits of sleep for children and adults.
Research conducted in London, UK, found that children who sleep the least eat the most.
Researchers studied toddlers aged 16 months.
They found that when they slept for less than ten hours a day they consumed as much as 105 kilocalories a day more than children who achieved more than 13 hours sleep.
This was equivalent to 10% of the daily diet.
The research, reported in the International Journal of Obesity, involved some 1,303 children, whose sleep was monitored when they were 16 months old and whose diet was monitored at 21 months old.
Researcher Dr Abi Fisher, of University College, London, said: “We know that shorter sleep in early life increases the risk of obesity, so we wanted to understand whether shorter sleeping children consume more calories.
“Previous studies in adults and older children have shown that sleep loss causes people to eat more, but in early life parents make most of the decisions about when and how much their children eat, so young children cannot be assumed to show the same patterns.”
Meanwhile, in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, experts called for sleep to be a target of efforts to prevent diabetes and obesity.
Dr. Sebastian Schmid, of the University of Lübeck, Germany, Dr Manfred Hallschmid, of the University of Tübingen, Germany, and Professor Bernd Schultes, of eSwiss Medical and Surgical Centre, St Gallen, Switzerland, say experimental studies are starting to show a direct link between loss of sleep and the body's ability to handle glucose.
They write: "Ongoing and future studies will show whether interventions to improve sleep duration and quality can prevent or even reverse adverse metabolic traits.
"Meanwhile, on the basis of existing evidence, health care professionals can be safely recommended to motivate their patients to enjoy sufficient sleep at the right time of day.”
Fisher et al. Sleep and energy intake in early childhood. International Journal of Obesity 25 March 2014
The metabolic burden of sleep loss Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol 25 March 2014; doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(14)70012-9 [abstract]
Tags: Child Health | Diabetes | Europe | Fitness | General Health | UK News
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