Friday, April 04, 2008

A whole new meaning to the phrase: Sleep it off

From our French friends comes the news that,

"An extra hour between the sheets at night might be the key to shedding excess weight and fighting obesity, according to recent research"

Yeah, that's my kind of research! Maybe Eliot Spitzer was just trying to lose weight?

Sadly, that's not actually what they are talking about:

"More sleep could be the ideal way of stabilising weight or slimming," said neuro-scientist Karine Spiegel, of France's INSERM, a public organisation dedicated to biological, medical and public health research.

It's all about the hormones, people

Two key hormones produced at night which help regulate appetite were at play, she said.

Grehlin makes people hungry, slows metabolism and decreases the body's ability to burn body fat, and leptin, a protein hormone produced by fatty tissue, regulates fat storage.

"We have shown that less sleep (two four-hour nights) caused an 18 percent loss of appetite-cutting leptin and a 28 percent increase of appetite-causing grehlin," she said.

Such hormonal changes made people hungry for foods heavy in fats and sugars such as chips, biscuits, cakes and peanuts, she added.


INSERM?? Grehlin?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is fairly predictable. If you're tired, you're going to crave things that will keep you going - sugars, fats, salt.