Get Your Sleep Or You Will Be Fat & Sick

Diabetes, heart disease, obesity?  I wrote about Dr Oz's anti-aging check list which included getting enough sleep and also how lack of sleep can make you fat.  Several large scale studies have shown a correlation between lack of sleep and heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke. Again we hear about sleep studies on 60 Minutes tonight.

Lesley Stahl reported on 60 Minutes- sleep research which showed why humans need sleep and the dire consequences when they don't get enough. 

Not getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night affects our health in many ways including memory and the immune system.  Stahl reports that in this study, healthy young volunteers had their bodies monitored while their sleep was interferred with for 6 nights in a row.  The researchers noticed after testing that the young subjects were in a pre diabetic state.  On the road to diabetes after only 6 nights of interrupted sleep!

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The study also showed that lack of sleep may be contributing to the epidemic of obesity through the work of a hormone called leptin that tells your brain when you're full.  After the six nights of sleep interruption,  the subjects had a drop in their leptin levels which then told the body it was hungry when it really wasn't.  So, they ate and ate more.  So now not only eating too many calories can put the weight on but also not sleeping enough.

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