Experiment: It’s easy to lose weight while you sleep

“There is strong evidence that sleeping less than seven hours a night on a regular basis is associated with negative health effects. In particular, it is increasingly recognized that inadequate sleep is a significant risk factor for obesity. (…]On the other hand, no Clarify whether increasing sleep duration can be an effective obesity prevention or weight loss strategy Israa Tasali and co-authors from the University of Chicago Department of Public Health in the Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA Internal Medicine. The study It is currently one of the most widely read current scientific studies by physicians in the USA.

More than eight hours

Epidemiological observations are one thing, and empirical evidence quite another: between the beginning of November 2014 and the end of October 2020, scientists conducted a study of 80 test subjects. 41 of them are men. All participants were overweight with a body mass index (BMI) between 25 and 29.9. A BMI above 30 is considered obese. The participants, who had an average age of 29.8 years, typically slept less than 6.5 hours per night.

In the clinical study, half of the group (which was randomly selected) were encouraged to get up to 8.5 hours of sleep per night as possible through bedtime counseling and hygiene procedures. Weight, power consumption, energy consumption, etc. were carefully monitored using technical means. The same is true for sleep duration. After a two-week initiation phase without intervention, the actual study continued for another two weeks. The participants stayed at home and went about their normal lives as usual.

Fewer calories

The evaluation showed a potentially very important effect of avoiding obesity and weight loss: “The group that got more sleep showed a significant reduction in energy intake (minus 270 calories per day) compared to the control group. There was no significant effect of this ‘treatment’ on expenditure of Energy (…). Improving or maintaining healthy sleep periods for longer periods can be part of obesity prevention and weight loss programmes.”

More sleep appears to curb appetite, because diets etc were of course avoided in the study. Even small regular changes in calorie intake (also in calorie consumption) have a long-term effect on body weight. The study authors cite scientific observations, according to which an increase in energy consumption by one hundred calories per day leads to a weight gain of 4.5 kg within three years.

without diet

Short-term in vitro experiments have already led to similar indications regarding the effect of more sleep on the energy intake of the test subjects. “To our knowledge, this study is at least the first to provide evidence of a positive effect of increasing sleep duration to a healthy extent on objectively measured energy intake and body weight in test subjects in their normal living environment,” the experts said in the days of the study, emerging the investigation firmly.

Statistics were published a few years ago, according to which Austrians, with approximately 3,800 calories per day, lead the world in terms of energy consumption. With only light physical activity, energy consumption is assumed between 2,000 and 2,400 calories for women and men. Eating 270 calories less energy per day through more sleep would itself be a huge limitation without any diet. “Adieu, diets” can also be a slogan for future weight loss