Stay thin by sleeping more?

[Aki]

Sure, we usually hear that you get fatter if you stay in bed more, but now, research have shown that people who are sleeping less have a lower mass index. Weird isn't it?

Here's the story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=3&u=/nm/20050111/od_nm/health_sleep_dc

[whoa182]

Its true, Its definitly happened to me, over a few months I was just went through a phase where I would want to keep learning everything I possibly could on the Net, I would sometimes sleep all throughout the day and get up a few hours in the evening then go bed early in the morning again, I did infact lose a lot of muscle mass, I lost over 17 pounds, Since then Ive been doing a lot of training to gain back my muscle mass through protein and weight lifting.

[Aki]

Have you been eating at the same time?

[Stargazer]

I knew that sleep was good for other things than to cause me to be late at work...

[infamous]

SnorZZZZZZZZZZZ.....SnorZZZZZZZZZZ

[pgrmdave]

If only they found that sitting in front of a computer screen made you healthier

[Killean]

I hear you there Pg. I sleep too little but balance it out with not eating a whole lot. A perfect unhealthy balance if you ask me, which you didn't.

"However, while there is a growing awareness among some sleep, metabolic, cardiovascular, and diabetes researchers that insufficient sleep could be leading to a cascade of disorders, few in the general medicine profession or in the lay public have yet made the connection,"

"It has now been found that lack of sleep causes cancer." Heh. Wouldn't surprise me if that popped up somewhere. Though I can't help but wonder what kind of disorders they are talking about, besides growth problems and diabetes.

[Hajderman]

BMI is not good indicator wether you get thinner and in what way. What i ment is that you can loose muscle mass because you sleep less and get the lower BMI that way. Better indicator would be body fat content.

[TeleMad]

In an interview with Reuters, Turek said some studies have shown sleep deprivation causes declines in an appetite suppressing protein hormone called leptin, and increases in another hormone that causes a craving for food. In addition neuropeptides in the brain governing sleep and obesity appear to overlap, he said.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=3&u=/nm/20050111/od_nm/health_sleep_dc

The part about lack of sleep changing the amount of two hormones related to eating (leptin and ghrelin) was also mentioned in Scientific American, back in December 04.

The researchers report today in the journal Public Library of Science: Medicine that people who consistently slept less than five fours a night had significant differences in the hormones leptin and ghrelin as compared with people who slept an average of eight hours a night. Leptin is produced by fat cells. Low levels of it are a signal of starvation and a need for a bigger appetite. Ghrelin, meanwhile, is produced by the stomach and is an appetite stimulant--the more ghrelin you have, the more you want to eat. The study subjects suffering a lack of sleep had 16 percent less leptin and nearly 15 percent more ghrelin than those who were well rested did. "In Western societies, where chronic sleep restriction is common and food is widely available, changes in appetite regulatory hormones with sleep curtailment may contribute to obesity," the team reports. (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...000&sc=I100322)