Sleep affects Obesity

The amount of time people spend sleeping may affect their weight, study results suggest.

The study looked at people living in rural areas. Previous studies conducted in urban and suburban areas have had similar results, which suggests that sleep loss may play a role in the increasing rates of obesity in the United States.

Researchers have proposed that shorter sleep duration may affect levels of two weight-control hormones: reduced levels of leptin, a hormone associated with satiety, and increased levels of ghrelin, associated with hunger.

Dr Neal D. Kohatsu, an epidemiologist at the California Department of Health Services in Sacramento, and his associates were interested in studying rural populations because obesity rates are higher and lifestyle patterns of nutrition, physical activity, work hours, and sleep differ from those in more populous areas.

Rural populations also have a higher prevalence of suicide and a greater propensity toward other risky health behaviours.

According to the researchers' report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, theirs is the first study evaluating the relationship between sleep duration and body mass index (BMI) in rural settings. BMI reflects weight in relation to height, with 20-25 classified as normal, 25-30 as overweight, and over 30 as obese.