We all know how lack of sleep can severely impact our regular body functions and cause long-term harm.
However, a recent study in the Journal of Lipid Research at Pennsylvania State University reveals that if someone doesn't get a good night's sleep for a few days in a row, it considerably impacts his/her metabolism and causing them to put on weight.
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Kelly Ness, a postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington conducted a study with a bunch of 15 participants that got ample amounts of sleep at home. These were men in their 20's and were a part of a 10-night study. In those ten nights, five of those were spent by participants with not more than five hours in bed, every night.
She stated while there were other researchers who were collecting data, they were also causally interacting with the participants, playing games etc. basically helping them to stay awake and engaged.
To denote the impact of sleep deprivation on metabolism, the researchers gave the participants a high-fat dinner -- a bowl of chili mac -- on the fourth night of the five-hour sleep. According to Ness, "It was very palatable -- none of our subjects had trouble finishing it -- but very calorically dense."
The researchers had served the same meal every night. And while the participants thoroughly enjoyed consuming it with a good night's sleep, they felt less-satisfied after eating the same meal after they were sleep-deprived.?
The researchers then also examined the blood samples from the participants and discovered that the sleep deprivation had impacted their postprandial lipid response that resulted in faster clearance of lipids from the blood after eating. This was resulting in the lipids to not get evaporated but stored causing the participant to put-on weight.
After the work-week simulation of sleep deprivation ended, on Friday and Saturday night they could catch-up on the whole ten-hour of sleep. During this, they also consumed one last bowl of chilli mac. After looking at the numbers, researchers discovered that even though the metabolism had slight improvements, it didn't really come back to how it used to be.?
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Even though this study is an imperfect example of the real world as it was completely controlled study and only included men, it revealed how a high-fat dinner at night can cause a considerable amount of harm to the metabolism, significantly spiking the fats in the body.?
The researchers also wondered if giving the participants more recovery time in the form of a longer sleep buffer could have aided in the normalisation of metabolism activity.