Sleep Deprivation #3

Researchers have connected lack of adequate amounts of sleep to packing on pounds. And similar to the effects of jet lag or cramming for final examinations, lack of adequatge sleep has been found to lead to weight gain almost immediately. Researchers at the University of Colorado spent two weeks studying 16 health males and females. During the first week, 8 of the participants were allowed to sleep nine hours a night (while the other eight were permitted to sleep only five hours). During the second week, researchers reversed the sleeping schedules.   Lead author Kenneth Wright reported that sleeping for only five hours increased the metabolism of participants (e.g., they burned an extgra 111 calories a day). With increased metabolisms, the participants ate 6% more calories than the non-sleep-deprived participants, many of those calories in carbohydrates and fats. No surprise, the sleep deprived participants gained an average of two pounds in one week. THe good news? When the sleep-deprived participatns were allowed to sleep nine hours, almost immediately they started to lose the extra weight.