Skimping on sleep by as little as 80 minutes a night can result in weight gain at a rate of one pound every six weeks, a study from Columbia University suggests.
Individuals who reduced their sleep time were also found to spend more time being sedentary during the day, potentially amplifying health risks. Professor Marie-Pierre St-Onge, who led the study, noted that adequate sleep may help reduce the risk of weight gain and obesity-related conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
The research aimed to investigate a more common scenario of mild sleep deprivation, rather than extreme restrictions seen in some previous studies. For the study, 95 adults who typically slept seven to eight hours per night were asked to delay their bedtime by 90 minutes for a six-week period, followed by six weeks of their usual sleep schedule.
Participants wore wrist monitors to track sleep patterns. Researchers recorded changes in body weight, waist circumference, body composition, and hormone levels related to appetite. On average, participants slept about 80 minutes less per night during the deprivation phase.
During this period, sedentary time increased by an average of 17 minutes per day. This increase was nearly 30 minutes per day for men and postmenopausal women. Faris Zuraikat, the study's first author and an assistant professor at Columbia, highlighted that even this modest curtailment, when extrapolated over a year, could lead to clinically meaningful weight gain.
Previous research involving the same participants indicated that women with increased cardiometabolic risk who reduced their sleep by approximately 80 minutes a night for six weeks showed increased insulin resistance, a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. These effects were more pronounced in postmenopausal women. Another study on the group found an influx of inflammatory cells in the heart of men and women with elevated heart risk after sleep loss.
While more research is needed to fully understand the mechanisms linking sleep restriction to weight gain, the findings suggest that insufficient sleep increases the risk of obesity-related conditions like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The researchers plan to further investigate the health effects of improving sleep in individuals who regularly get inadequate sleep.