Your Fat Needs Sleep Too

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=your-fat-needs-sleep-too-12-10-16&WT.mc_id=SA_sharetool_Twitter

by danso • 14 years ago

74 22 14 years ago

scientificamerican.com

gxs• 14 years ago

That's great news, it really is.

But I'm always curious as to the direction of causation.

I would love to sleep more - sure. If only it were that easy. I cannot get a good night sleep for the life of me. Eliminating legumes and gluten, along with a shitton of crossfit has left me with the best results so far.

I guess I'm not making too grandiose a point. All I'm saying is that people that are over weight may not be sleeping well because they are over weight and not the other way around.

corin_• 14 years ago

From the (briefly explained) sound of this experiment, they showed a big difference in the same people based on sleep levels, so it's more than "fat people slep less, therefore lack of sleep is the cause".

daeken• 14 years ago

> All I'm saying is that people that are over weight may not be sleeping well because they are over weight and not the other way around.

That's definitely backed up by the links between, say, sleep apnea and obesity. I've been obese all my life, and every time I lose or gain weight (even 10-20lbs, which isn't that much for me) I feel the impact on my sleep above all else.

lrem2• 14 years ago

I have bmi around 18 and sleep is my biggest problem since my first memories.

alwaysinshade• 14 years ago

> I cannot get a good night sleep for the life of me.

Try low-dose Melatonin combined with 5HTP and stay away from backlit displays for an hour before bed [1]. Large doses of Melatonin leave me groggy the next day, but small doses give me a solid night of sleep and eliminates the bags under my eyes. 5HTP seems to augment the effect and promote a more positive mood the next day.

[1] http://news.rpi.edu/update.do?artcenterkey=3074&setappva...

“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent. Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime,” said Figueiro.

rogerbinns• 14 years ago

Note that you can automatically adjust the display colour temperature to match the time. I use this and it makes a huge difference.

On Linux use Redshift. On other operating systems use f.lux.

http://jonls.dk/redshift/

http://stereopsis.com/flux/

When you toggle/disable them you realise just what a difference it makes.

pault• 14 years ago

Chase that 5-HTP with some L-Tryptophan. Something about the two getting metabolized into serotonin. It really kicks it up a notch!

ngokevin• 14 years ago

Timing is a factor to waking up feeling good. You can sleep 4 hours and still wake up alert.

Try sleepyti.me.

Cogito2• 14 years ago

I would love to see studies like this that further explore the relationship between length of time spent sleeping and health/behavioural benefits.

For this study, did they choose 8.5 and 4.5 hours arbitrarily? Probably not, but a comparison over more gradated time intervals would be really interesting.

NDizzle• 14 years ago

Coincidentally I can't sleep longer than 8.5 hours (no matter what) and if I get 4.5 hours of sleep or less I'm absolutely worthless.

I'd have qualified for the study if it wasn't for that damn athletic requirement!

Cogito2• 14 years ago

I think there is quite a body of literature around why 8-8.5 hours is a good amount, what I really want to see is what the different benefits as functions of sleep time looks like. That information would be invaluable for doing a min-max optimisation.

6 hours tends to be my reasonable 'short sleep' time, where anything less and I am significantly tired during the day, but I am easily capable of sleeping all day if the opportunity arises. Usually, however, I think I get 7-8 hours, which tends to be ok.

A big factor also seems to be breathing function throughout sleep. I think I breathe poorly while sleeping and so don't have quite as good a sleep as I could otherwise.

aeturnum2• 14 years ago

I think sleep research is one of the most interesting areas. We still have no clear explanation as to why we sleep, or what purpose sleep serves. The best we can do right now is list the problems that arise if we don't sleep.

001sky• 14 years ago

It is also interesting, just generally, for the pervasiveness of 'sleep' like state among most living things. Even plants, etc. have cellular/metabolic reaction (to darkeness, etc). Like there needs to be some wave-form of cylclicality baked into the deep strucure of life.

code_duck• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with living for millions of years in this place that has a day/night cycle and how limited the crucial visual sense is in the dark. Might as well save your power for when you are at your most effective.

aeturnum2• 14 years ago

That's true to a certain extent, but sleep is more than just conserving energy. People who don't or can't sleep start to have all sorts of problems. There's something fundamental to how our bodies and brains work that we do while we sleep, and that's interesting (doubly so because we don't understand how it works).

elliott99• 14 years ago

ZMA Max is pretty good. Though have given me the strangest REM dreams of my life.

jcarpio• 14 years ago

"after sleep deprivation, the cells became 30 percent less receptive to insulin signals"

Let's see, insulin causes lypogenesis; signaling fat cells to store energy as fat.

Sleep deprivation causes fat cells to be less receptive to insulin...

So, pass me the doughnuts while I stay up for the next week.

eru2• 14 years ago

Low insulin is also a signal.

rafcavallaro• 14 years ago

I know this was tongue in cheek, but:

insulin insensitivity = adult onset diabetes

so be prepared to have some toes or feet amputated (or to maybe just go blind) if you stay up with those donuts.

Your Fat Needs Sleep Too

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