Sleep yourself skinny

By SONA PARMAR MUKHERJEE Posted Friday, March 19 2010 at 15:58

According to Dr Jeffrey Bland, a pioneer in functional medicine, sleep is ‘by far the most important antioxidant’. I would have to agree. All the pills in the world can’t make up for a good night’s sleep.

While it’s true that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously got by on just 4 hours a night and many people see sleep as a waste of time, it now appears that not only is sleep important for the regeneration of the body, but not getting enough means that you’re likely to be putting on weight.

In fact, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shortened sleep cycles led to eating, on average, 200 calories more the next day.

This means that if I’m not sleeping enough, I could potentially gain almost 21 lbs in a year! How on earth can that be true?

Well it’s all to do with how sleep restriction affects certain chemical reactions within cells (known as metabolic pathways) and how this can lead to insulin resistance – a condition I’ve talked about in this column before, which makes an individual more susceptible to type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease and weight gain.

So how much sleep are we talking about? Well, the study I’m talking about looked at the difference between those sleeping 7-8 hours and those sleeping less than 6 hours over the course of 6 years.

It showed that those sleeping 6 hours of less were 2.78 times more likely to develop type II diabetes. Add to that other evidence that shows that inducing sleep deprivation in healthy individuals can also induce insulin resistance and it doesn’t take that long either.

That means you can you justify your weekend lie-ins, right? Not quite. It appears that too much sleep (9 hours or more) also increases your diabetes risk – by about 2.5 times.

So, like Goldilocks and her porridge, you need to get the sleep just right. And, studies aside, it makes perfect sense. In fact, it’s common sense.

Why we expect our bodies to continue performing at an optimum level while treating it in a sub-optimal way is beyond me. You wouldn’t even expect the same from your car.

So don’t let sleep slip down your list of priorities. It may not be fashionable, it may not even be socially-acceptable, but it’s the easiest way to lose a few pounds and keep your body ticking over nicely.

satmag@nutritionbysona.com