Sleep More to Lose Weight

Here's what sounds like the best diet of all time: Sleep more to weigh less! It could be a reality, say researchers, who have produced evidence linking too-little shut-eye to obesity.

The Archives Of Internal Medicine reports that Dr Robert Vorona, an assistant professor of sleep medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in US, suspects that lack of sleep sets off hormonal changes that affect people's appetites.

His study noted that persons of normal weight got more sleep than their overweight and obese counterpartsm by an average of 16 minutes per night, or 1.9 hours a week.

Oddly enough, the study found that severely obese people got more sleep than people of other varying weights. Dr Vorona says this may be because their bodies are more likely to produce sleep-inducing chemicals.



Extracted from Family:March 2005