APSS: Poor Sleep and Insomnia May Lead to Impaired Nutrition

MINNEAPOLIS, June 13 -- Poor sleepers may be too tired during the day to eat properly, according to researchers here.
Yet by increasing the amount of sleep time -- or at least the amount of time in bed before getting up -- there may be a reduction in caloric intake, researchers reported at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies meeting.
"Persons with sleep complaints such as insomnia are less likely to eat at home," said psychologist Mindy Engle-Friedman, Ph.D., of Baruch College of the City University of New York. "These meals outside the home may require less effort and may be less healthful than meals prepared at home."
"Over time, persons with sleep complaints may have weight or health problems related to their nutrition," she said.
She studied the sleep and diet of 21 healthy undergraduates -- 12 men and nine women -- for seven days. She said the differences between the those eating at home and those who ate more in restaurants reached statistical significance (P<.05) on days two, four, and seven, and trended towards significance on the other days in the study.
"There are commuting students so they are either preparing meals at home or are eating meals that are prepared by their parents," Dr. Engle-Friedman said. "We have found that meals prepared at home are healthier than those in restaurants -- the home-cooked meals have less, fat and have less salt, generally. We have recorded the foods that the students ate during this study and we are analyzing that data now."
She said insomniacs or those who have problems awakening or have reduced sleep times tend to put less effort into their activities of daily living. "They take the easier way out, and when that comes to eating, it is easier to stop into a fast food restaurant than to prepare a meal oneself or wait for it to be ready. By not putting enough effort into preparing their food they are having a negative impact on their nutrition."
Dr. Engle-Friedman noted previous epidemiological studies that suggested dining out at restaurants -- especially fast food restaurants -- has been associated with a 10-pound weight gain over 15 years, and that sleep loss is also associated with insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes.
In an experiment at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., researchers persuaded 32 summer school student volunteers to keep diaries of the food s that they ate for three weeks and how much time they slept each day, including naps. After one week of baseline sleep and meal were assessed, the participants were told to try to stay in bed two hours longer a night for each night of week two. In week three they were allowed to return to their normal routine.
"What we found was that the students in week two would go to bed earlier and that then would eat nearly 300 calories a day less," said psychologist Jennifer Peszka, Ph.D., of Hendrix.
"We wondered whether the lower intake was due to the students just not recording their entire food intake -- getting tired of the task after two weeks," she said at her poster presentation. "But the food intake went up almost to baseline during the third week."
Dr. Peszka said that the sleep diaries showed that the students were getting about seven hours of sleep a day -- a sleep deprivation of about two hours for persons their age. At baseline, the students who said they felt sleepy during the daytime averaged about 2,100 calories of food a day compared with about 1,800 calories a day for the students who said they didn't feel sleepy. Both groups showed similar calorie dips in the second week when they were in bed longer.
"It's possible the calorie dip reflects less hunger among the students, or it could mean they are not having a late night snack or they drank less soda at night to keep them awake," she said. On-going studies will try to decipher that.
Although the studies were different in time and scope, Dr. Peszka said there was nothing in her study that contradicted the results of Dr. Engle-Friedman's study among urban college students. "These studies seem to mesh very well," Dr. Peszka said. "Sleepy people tend to consume more food." Primary source: SleepSource reference: Mindy Engle-Friedman, "Abstract 0673: DO SLEEP PROBLEMS AFFECT WHAT WE EAT?"Sleep 2007, 30, supplement,p A228.
Jennifer Peszka, "Abstract 1102: DOES ONE WEEK OF SLEEP EXTENSION IMPACT EATING BEHAVIOR IN HEALTHY YOUNG ADULTS? "Sleep 2007, 30, supplement,p A379.