An extra hour between the sheets at night might be the key to shedding excess weight and fighting obesity, according to recent research.
“More sleep could be the ideal way of stabilizing weight or slimming,” said neuroscientist Karine Spiegel, of France’s INSERM, a public organization dedicated to biological, medical and public health research.
Although poor eating habits and lack of exercise clearly play a role in the global rise of obesity, recent data indicates that lack of sleep may also be a factor, and one that is often underestimated.
Around 30 surveys carried out on wide population samples in seven countries have underlined a link between lack of sleep and excess weight or obesity in both children and adults, Spiegel said.
The first of the studies, carried out in 1992 in France, highlighted the problem in children and teenagers. Spiegel said the increase in obesity in the US in the second half of the 20th century corresponded with a mounting decrease in sleep.
Two key hormones produced at night which help regulate appetite were at play, she said.
Grehlin makes people hungry, slows metabolism and decreases the body’s ability to burn body fat, and leptin, a protein hormone produced by fatty tissue, regulates fat storage.
“We have shown that less sleep (two four-hour nights) caused an 18 percent loss of appetite-cutting leptin and a 28 percent increase of appetite-causing grehlin,” she said.
Such hormonal changes made people hungry for foods heavy in fats and sugars such as chips, biscuits, cakes and peanuts, she added.
The sleep loss caused a 23 percent to 24 percent increase in hunger, Spiegel said, translating into an extra 350 kilocalories to 500 kilocalories a day, “which for a young sedentary adult of normal weight could lead to a major amount of added weight.”
It was unclear whether several years of sleep deprivation could lastingly harm the body’s ability to restore a balance between the two hormones.
A study released in Washington, DC, in February showed children lacking shut-eye faced a greater risk of becoming obese than kids who got a good night’s sleep.
Each extra hour of sleep cuts a child’s risk of becoming overweight or obese by nine percent, according to an analysis of epidemiological studies by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
By contrast, children who got the least sleep had a 92 percent higher chance of being overweight or obese than children who slept enough, said the study published in the journal Obesity.
“Our analysis of the data shows a clear association between sleep duration and the risk for overweight or obesity in children. The risk declined with more sleep,” said Youfa Wang, a senior author of the study.
“Desirable sleep behavior may be an important low-cost means for preventing childhood obesity and should be considered in future intervention studies,” Wang said in a news release.
The researchers reviewed 17 published studies on sleep duration and childhood obesity.
Some research recommends that children under 5 years old sleep 11 hours or more a day, while children age 5 to 10 should get 10 or more hours of sleep, and children older than 10 should sleep at least nine hours.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
RSS