This story was first published in digitalhealth.net
Link between abnormal sleep and obesity
A new study has found that abnormal sleeping patterns can increase the risk of being overweight for those genetically predisposed to obesity.
Abnormal sleep, considered sleeping too much or too little, was considered a factor regardless of diet, health or socio-demographic group. However, the research found no clear link between sleep duration and body weight in those with a low genetic risk of obesity.
Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the University of Glasgow study, which included data from almost 120,000 UK Biobank participants, looked at the effects of a short sleep, less than seven hours a night, and a long sleep, more than nine hours, along with daytime napping and shift work, and found that both further increased the risk of carrying excess weight for people with a high genetic risk of obesity.
Long sleepers with a risk of obesity were about 4kg heavier and short sleepers were about 2kg heavier than those with a similarly high genetic obesity risk with normal sleep durations.
Dr Jason Gill, from the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, said: "These data show that in people with high genetic risk for obesity, sleeping for too short or too long a time, napping during the day and shift work appears to have a fairly substantial adverse influence on body weight.
"However, the influence of adverse sleep characteristics on body weight is much smaller in those with low genetic obesity risk - these people appear to be able to 'get away' with poorer sleep habits to some extent."
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