Can Increasing Sleep Mean Decreasing Weight?

EPISODE #21
Uploaded: July 30, 2009
Running Time: 3:07

SCHMALFELDT:  From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.   Could "more sleep" lead to "less weight?"  That's what researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases will attempt to learn through a clinical trial being conducted at the NIH Clinical Center.  According to NIDDK researchers, both problems have been increasingly pervasive in recent years, with adult obesity doubling over the past 30 years and continuing to increase.  Also, industrial societies attach an economic value to sleeping as little as possible - less sleeping, more time for work and other activities is the theory.  In fact, over the last century, the average night's sleep has decreased by approximately two hours.  Chronic sleep deprivation has already been found to play a role in glucose intolerance, cardiovascular disease and mortality, according to Dr. Giovanni Cizza, an investigator in the Clinical Endocrinology Branch of the NIDDK and principal investigator of the study.

CIZZA:  The theory is that sleep deprivation is a stressor and, as a stressor can trigger the stress system.  The stress system in humans and in other species is very similar and you do have, when you are stressed, an increase in cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone which increases appetite.  There are changes in other hormones namely leptin and ghrelin which are appetite signals and together all these changes and other changes make people eat more and therefore gain weight.

SCHMALFELDT:  To measure the impact of increasing sleep time, researchers are looking for obese men and pre-menopausal women between the ages of 18 and 50 to take part in a 12-month (with a 36-month extension), randomized, comparison-controlled clinical trial of an extension of sleep, up to about 7 and a half hours for those chosen for the intervention group, with a continuation of short sleep hours for those randomized to the comparison group.  Researchers will check to see if additional sleep results in a significant difference in body weight at the end of 12 months.  For more information about this or any other clinical trial log on to http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov, or e-mail prpl@mail.cc.nih.gov.  You may also call, toll free, 1-866-999-5553.  From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.  In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Bill Schmalfeldt at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

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