Bad Sleeping Habits can Cause Weight Gain

When people habitually sleep less they experience an increase in appetite which could cause them to gain weight in the future.

For the study, Christian Benedict, together with Samantha Brooks, Helgi Schioth and Elna-Marie Larsson from Uppsala University and researchers from other European universities, systematically examined which regions in the brain, involved in appetite sensation, are influenced by acute sleep loss.

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By means of magnetic imaging (fMRI) the researchers studied the brains of 12 normal-weight males while they viewed images of foods. he researchers compared the results after a night with normal sleep with those obtained after one night without sleep.After a night of total sleep loss, these males showed a high level of activation in an area of the brain that is involved in a desire to eat," Benedict said.Bearing in mind that insufficient sleep is a growing problem in modern society, our results may explain why poor sleep habits can affect people's risk to gain weight in the long run.

"It may therefore be important to sleep about eight hours every night to maintain a stable and healthy body weight," Benedict added.he study has been published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

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