Can sleep affect your waistline?

I heard my colleague, Dr. Brian McDonough, talking on KYW News Radio here in Philadelphia about how sleep can affect your waistline, and I thought, what a great topic for a tired Monday morning.

And before I get into it, I want to give Brian credit. For decades, Dr. McDonough has been a trusted medical voice on the radio and online.

So, can not getting enough sleep really make it harder to control your weight?

And the answer is yes. And the reasons are fascinating.

When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re not simply tired the next day. You’re potentially changing the way your body regulates hunger, metabolism, and even the foods that you crave.

One piece involves the hormones that regulate appetite, including ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin helps signal hunger, while leptin is involved in signaling that you’ve had enough to eat.

Sleep restriction can disrupt these appetite-regulating systems.

But there’s more.

When you’re sleep deprived, your brain’s response to food can change. You’re often more tempted by calorie-dense foods like sweets, carbohydrates, and late-night snacks.

Sure, everyone understands the research behind it, but it is an observation that is very consistent. And quite simply, if you’re awake for more hours, you have more opportunities to eat.

Poor sleep can also interfere with insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism.

We’ve known this for years. Over time, these metabolic changes can make maintaining a healthy weight more difficult.

And here’s where it becomes especially important from my perspective as a heart surgeon.

We’re not just talking about the number on the scale. We’re not just talking about your total weight.

Research has linked shorter sleep with increased abdominal or visceral fat, the fat around your waistline. And that is the type of fat that is particularly important because it is associated with insulin resistance, inflammation, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

So when we talk about maintaining a healthy weight, we usually talk about two things: diet and exercise.

But maybe we should also more consistently talk about the third important part of health, and that’s sleep.

For most adults, aiming for roughly seven to nine hours of quality sleep each night is tough, but it’s a reasonable goal.

Yes, you can eat well, you can exercise, but if you’re chronically sleep deprived, you’re making weight control harder than it needs to be.

So tonight, getting to bed may be doing more for your health and perhaps for your waistline than you realize.

And again, thanks to Dr. Brian McDonough for inspiring today’s conversation.

I’m Dr. Raymond Singer. I hope this was helpful and I’ll see you next time.