If you don’t have enough leptin, eat more! The reason is that you don’t get enough sleep

"You'll get fat if you eat so much!" "Because it tastes good. I exercise anyway, so it's okay." The above conversation is something we often hear in our lives. Until now, the causes of excess weight (also known as obesity) have always been attributed to overeating and lack of exercise. However, according to recent studies, obesity is also closely related to lack of sleep.

Children’s lack of sleep will lead to obesity problems ten years later! ?

A research team from Japan's Toyama University compared the sleep time of three-year-old children and calculated the probability of obesity 10 years later between those who slept more than 10 hours and those who slept less than 10 hours. Children need more sleep than adults, usually 10 to 12 hours. The results showed that children who slept 9 to 10 hours were 1.2 times more likely to become obese, while those who slept less than 9 hours were 1.6 times more likely to become obese, indicating that lack of sleep increases the risk of obesity.

In other words, if the sleep time is less than 10 hours, it means that the sleep time is not enough, and such children have a relatively high chance of becoming obese. Therefore, lack of sleep is also considered one of the causes of obesity.

Sleeping less will cause three major factors of obesity

So why does lack of sleep lead to obesity? Let’s first look at the changes in the body’s mechanisms. Once people do not get enough sleep, their exercise volume will decrease and their energy consumption will also decrease. In this way, excess calories will be converted into fat and stored in the body, causing obesity. This is one of the mechanisms.

Recently, another mechanism has been discovered: the relationship between lack of sleep and obesity is due to changes in two hormones: leptin and ghrelin.

Simply put, leptin suppresses appetite and ghrelin stimulates appetite. The two hormones work together to complement each other to control appetite. In an experimental study, the relationship between these two hormones and sleep duration was investigated.

Observe the changes in hormone concentrations in the blood of people who sleep 10 hours a day and those who sleep 4 hours a day. The results showed that the leptin concentration in the blood of patients who slept for 4 hours was 18% lower than that of patients who slept for 10 hours. On the other hand, blood ghrelin levels increased by 28%.

That is to say, once you lack sleep, the secretion of leptin, which suppresses appetite, will decrease, while the secretion of ghrelin, which promotes appetite, will increase. Due to the imbalance in the secretion of leptin and ghrelin, even if you eat the amount of food that would normally make you feel full (with adequate sleep and full energy), you will still feel it is not enough and will eat more food.

This is the body mechanism by which lack of sleep can lead to overeating and obesity. Furthermore, leptin has the effect of promoting metabolism. If your metabolism improves and your calorie consumption increases, you will naturally not gain weight easily.

However, because lack of sleep causes a decrease in leptin levels in the blood, the metabolic rate naturally decreases. From this it can be seen that lack of sleep causes a triple blow of reduced energy expenditure, overeating, and decreased metabolism, which leads to obesity.

This article is from Business Weekly Publishing "There is definitely a solution for insomnia or poor sleep! 》