Lack of sleep? Keep away from the buffet

In a previous article, published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, the researchers from the Department of Neuroscience at Uppsala University have shown that a single night of total sleep loss in young normal weight men increases the activation of a brain region involved in a desire to eat.

In the new study, Pleunie Hogenkamp and Christian Benedict, and their colleagues, have systematically examined whether sleep-deprived people select greater portion sizes of energy-dense snacks and meals under buffet-like conditions. To this aim, 16 normal-weight males were asked to select their ideal portion sizes of 7 meal and 6 snack items, in both hungry and sated conditions. In one condition, they were sleep-deprived, in the other condition they had a night with approximately 8 hours sleep.

Pleunie Hogenkamp, the main author of the present study, explains: "After a night of total sleep loss, these males chose greater portion sizes of the energy-dense foods. Interestingly, they did so both before and after a breakfast, suggesting that sleep deprivation enhances food intake regardless of satiety. Bearing in mind that insufficient sleep is a growing problem in modern society, our results may explain why poor sleep habits can affect people's risk to gain weight in the long run."