8,153
edits
Changes
m
no edit summary
Does a lack of [[Zeo Sleep Monitor|sleep ]] make you fat? There is good evidence that less than 7 hours sleep dramatically increases your risk of obesity.
=The Research=
A study<ref name="Exercise and insulin resistance review"/> looked at data from about 7,000 people from 1971 to 1992 to see how sleep was linked to obesity. They controlled the results for depression, physical activity, education, ethnicity, alcohol consumption, cigarette smoking, gender, waking during the night, daytime sleepiness, and age. Compared with people who sleep 7 hours per night, people who sleep 2-4 hours per night were more than twice as likely to be obese. Likewise, people who slept 5 hours sleep were 60% more likely to be obese and people who slept 6 hours were 27% more likely. Below you can see the risk of obesity controlled for the risk factors. As you can see, the risk of obesity drops sharply with increased sleep up to 7 hours per night. For men 8 hours is better than 7, but not for women, though it's not clear why this should be. (I have ignored the data for 9+ hours of sleep as the number of people is small and the data looks skewed.)