Sleep Duration Affects Food Intake Differently in Men and Women

There is common susceptibility to overeat during the short sleep and it is related to increased appetite in men and a reduced feeling of fullness in women.

A study also reveals that increasing the amount of sleep could lead to a drop in the amount of food consumed. But the hormonal process is different for both men and women.

"Restricting sleep in healthy, normal weight participants has limited effects on metabolic risk factors and may affect food intake regulating hormones differently in men and women," said Marie-Pierre St-Onge, PhD, FAHA, the study's principal investigator.

"We were surprised by the lack of a significant effect of sleep on glucose and insulin, leptin, and sex differences in the hunger-stimulating hormone ghrelin and the satiety hormone GLP-1."

The researchers focused on the sleep duration, glucose dysregulation, and hormonal regulation of appetite in 27 normal weight people that consisted of 30-to 45-year-old men and women.

These participants were studied under two sleep conditions, first being the 'short sleep' for 4 hours and next being 'habitual' that lasts for 9 hours.

The short sleep increased total ghrelin levels in men but not women and reduced GLP-1 levels in women but not in men. Such a sex difference was highlighted previously by nay study.

"Our results point to the complexity of the relationship between sleep duration and energy balance regulation," St-Onge said. "The state of energy balance, whether someone is in a period of weight loss or weight gain, may be critical in the metabolic and hormonal responses to sleep restriction."

The authors suggest that this is the largest controlled clinical investigation of the effects of sleep reduction on hormonal regulation of food intake. The results support a causal role of sleep duration on energy intake and weight control.

The study appears in the November issue of the journal SLEEP.