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If You Don't Want To Gain Weight, Hit The Bed Now!

Lack Of Sleep Might Be The Reason You're Putting On Weight
Beautiful plus size woman sleeping and dreaming about slim herself isolated
darkbird77 via Getty Images
Beautiful plus size woman sleeping and dreaming about slim herself isolated

If you're looking to for a new way to keep off the kilos this summer, you may need to sleep your way through it.

A new research has speculated that losing 30 Minutes of sleep per day may promote weight gain and adversely affect blood sugar control.

The study conducted at losing as little as 30 minutes of sleep per day on weekdays can have long-term consequences for body weight and metabolism.

Lead study author Professor Shahrad Taheri, MBBS, PhD, professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, in Doha, said that While previous studies have shown that short sleep duration is associated with obesity and diabetes, they found that as little as 30 minutes a day sleep debt could have significant effects on obesity and insulin resistance at follow up.

Professor Taheri and his colleagues recruited 522 patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus in the Early Activity in Diabetes trial and randomized them into one of three groups i.e. usual care, physical activity intervention, or diet and physical activity intervention.

Participants completed 7-day sleep diaries and calculated their weekday sleep debt and at baseline, the researchers recorded their height and weight to determine obesity status, measured their waist circumference for central adiposity, and analysed their fasting blood samples for insulin sensitivity.

At baseline, compared with participants who had no weekday sleep debt, those who had weekday sleep debt were 72 per cent more likely to be obese, and by the 6-month mark, weekday sleep debt was significantly associated with obesity and insulin resistance and at 12 months, for every 30 minutes of weekday sleep debt at baseline, the risk of obesity and insulin resistance was significantly increased by 17 per cent and 39 per cent, respectively.

The authors advised that future interventions designed to slow progression or reverse metabolic disease should consider all factors including sleep that affect metabolic function.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.