People Who Don't Get Enough Sleep Have Higher Fast Food Consumption, Study Reveals

First Posted: Jun 17, 2016 04:20 AM EDT
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As many may have known by now, people need at least seven to nine hours of sleep every day to achieve optimum health. A previous study said that lack of sleep can be directly connected to increased cravings of junk foods and weight gain. However, a new research claims that the duration of sleep is not the only thing that can negatively affect one's eating pattern, late sleep time can, too.

Science Daily reported that for the study, the researchers enlisted 96 healthy adults between the ages 18 and 50 who get at least 6.5 hours of sleep or more. The subjects of the study had to wear actigraphs,  a non-invasive method of monitoring human rest and activity cycles, for seven days. The actigraph also tracked the subjects' food intake and physical activities.

The findings revealed that those who have a habit of sleeping late and sleeping at least 6.5 hours a day have a tendency to eat more fast food, less vegetables as well as have a low physical activity. This was true despite the fact that late sleep times were associated with lower body mass index.

"Our results help us further understand how sleep timing in addition to duration may affect obesity risk," said principal investigator Kelly Glazer Baron, PhD, associate professor of neurology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois. "It is possible that poor dietary behaviors may predispose individuals with late sleep to increased risk of weight gain."

According to Medical Daily, this is not the first time that a study has linked sleep to poor diet behaviors. They said that past research has discovered that a person's biological clock, or the person's sleep-wake cycle is also connected with the stomach's microbiome. This means that it could also affect metabolism which can possibly increase the risk of being overweight or obese.

Not getting optimum sleep has also been linked to chronic diseases, such as diabetes, mental health issues and heart problems. A study has found that people who usually get less than six hours of sleep a night is four times more at risk of dying over a 14-year period. In other words, getting enough sleep at night could be a matter of life and death.

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