Sleep Less, Weigh More
By Dr. Patrick Lovegrove Medically Reviewed by Lindsay Langley, BSN, RN, CHT
Posted Sunday, September 12th, 2021
The relationship between sleep and weight is a two-way street. Lack of sleep can lead to weight gain; weight gain can lead to a lack of sleep. Please take steps to break those close links, and our weight, energy, and overall health will improve.
You Snooze, You Lose
Getting not enough quality sleep affects the two major hormone pathways is not a good way. The pituitary gland, which acts as the master controller for all other hormones, is susceptible to a lack of sleep. The pituitary gland generally functions if you’re getting the seven to eight hours of sleep most people need.
While you sleep, it coordinates the release of growth hormones and thyroid hormones, for example, and suppresses the release of the stress hormone cortisol. But if you’re like many other adults these days, you’re in a more or less constant state of partial sleep deprivation.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average American today sleeps only about seven hours a night. And many sleep only five to six hours a night regularly.
Chronic sleep deprivation leads to elevated cortisol in the evenings, when levels should diminish. When chronically high cortisol levels, insulin resistance is a crucial factor leading to weight gain. It sharply increases the risk of type 2 diabetes. Chronic sleep deprivation also changes the release of growth hormones. Our body has two smaller pulses and one big pulse before and after falling asleep. It sends one large hormone pulse after falling asleep and two smaller pulses before you fall asleep. It exposes tissues to growth hormones for longer and is a factor in reducing glucose tolerance.
People who get too little sleep tend to be heavier than those who sleep enough. To take just one research example, women in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study who slept on average 5 hours a night or less had a 15 percent greater chance of becoming obese over 16 years. It is a bigger percentage than women who slept on average seven hours a night.
Why does lack of sleep make you gain weight?
When having sleep loss, the hormones control the appetite, making you hungry! They make you hungrier than you should be, relative to how much energy you expend by staying awake. Our level of the hormone leptin, which regulates how satiated you feel, noticeably drops if you don’t get enough sleep, so you feel hungry even if you’ve eaten recently. At the same time, our hormone ghrelin, which stimulates our appetite, goes up, making us feel even hungrier—and we crave carbohydrates to satisfy our hunger. It’s not a lack of willpower making you eat cookies late at night—it’s a lack of sleep.
Lack of sleep will lead to increased insulin resistance and causes weight gain. The mechanism is complex, but when you don’t sleep enough, your cells can’t handle insulin well—the sensitivity of our fat cells to insulin can drop by as much as 30 percent. When your cells resist insulin, your blood sugar increases and your pancreas produces more insulin to overcome the resistance. But insulin is also our body’s fat-storing hormone.
This extra blood sugar gets carried off to be stored as fat.
You gain weight and are at increased risk not only for type 2 diabetes but also for high blood pressure, heart disease, and cancer. The risk of type 2 diabetes is genuine. According to the CDC, 11.1 percent of people who sleep less than 7 hours a night have type 2 diabetes, while only 8.6 percent of those who sleep more than 7 hours a night have the disease.
Weigh More, Sleep Less
The weight-sleep equation goes the other way, too: being overweight or obese can keep you from getting enough sleep. Weight-related health issues such as sleep apnea, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and arthritis can keep you from sleeping okay—you don’t get enough sleep even if you’re in bed for seven or eight hours or even longer. Poor quality sleep has the same effect on our weight as lack of sleep.
Obstructive sleep apnea, for example, is a prevalent cause of poor sleep quality, especially among adults who are overweight or obese. With obstructive sleep apnea, your airway collapses or is blocked while you sleep. When that happens, breathing becomes very shallow or even stops while you sleep—the pauses can last for just a few seconds to up to a minute or even longer.
In severe sleep apnea, they can happen as often as 30 times or more in an hour. After a breathing pause, you usually wake up with a choking noise or snort. You often go back to sleep immediately without realizing you woke up. Poor sleep quality leads to daytime sleepiness, putting you at risk for car crashes and workplace accidents. In the long term, obstructive sleep apnea can cause the same chronic illnesses that sleeping too little does, including high blood pressure, heart attacks, diabetes, and cancer. It’s also associated with cognitive and behavioral disorders.
Sleep apnea is a severe medical problem that is treatable with breathing devices such as positive pressure masks, but lifestyle changes, particularly weight loss, are essential.
With COPD, shortness of breath can make sleep difficult. People who have COPD and are also overweight or obese have even more trouble sleeping, which can worsen their COPD symptoms. Exercise is helpful for COPD, but it’s hard to do when you lack sleep. Losing weight can help improve sleep and raise energy levels.
Painful joints from arthritis can keep you up at night. Anti-inflammatory drugs and pain medication may help with sleep, but they can also bring additional problems, such as digestive upsets and possible dependence. Just as being overweight or obese is a significant risk factor for developing arthritis, losing weight is one of the best remedies. That’s hard to do if lack of sleep is causing hunger and painful joints are limiting your activity, but the improvement in arthritis symptoms from weight loss can be significant.
Changing Direction
Solving sleep loss and weight gain problems will lead to better health. The key is putting the brakes on weight gain by finding ways to get more high-quality sleep. Addressing medical issues such as sleep apnea and pain will help improve sleep. More often, the problem is a simple lack of sleep. Work schedules and life issues can mean a solid night’s sleep is low on the priority list. We can improve our work and personal life if we put to rest at the top list. Being well-rested helps provide more energy and can improve your outlook on life in general. When that happens, the ability to make dietary changes and focus on healthy eating improves.
Indeed, if you snooze, you lose!
About the author
Dr. Patrick Lovegrove
