Scientists have discovered a simple way to lose weight

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Many scientists believe that the obesity epidemic the world is facing is largely due to by increasing the caloric content of the diet of modern people, and not by the lack of physical exercise. At the same time, a new study showed that it is likely that in order to lose weight, sometimes it is enough to improve the quality of sleep and sleep more.

Results of a randomized clinical trial involving 80 adults. Scientists from the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that overweight young people who usually slept less than 6.5 hours. per day, along with an increase in sleep duration, energy consumption decreased by an average of 270 kcal per day.

The average age of the study participants was 29.8 years, and there were both men and women among them. The task was to bring the sleep time to 8.5 hours.

The study lasted four weeks in total: two weeks were needed to collect baseline data, and another two weeks were needed to observe the effects of the sleep intervention. As the researchers note, each hour increase in sleep duration was associated with a decrease in energy consumption by approximately 162 kcal per day.

At the same time, there were no other changes in the lifestyle of the study participants, writes EurekAlert. They slept in their own beds and otherwise led their normal lives, and were not given any dietary or exercise instructions.

As one of the authors of the study, Esra Tasali, MD, director of the Sleep Center, notes UChicago at the University of Chicago Medicine, sleep restriction affects appetite and leads to increased food intake. Thus, the risk of weight gain increases over time.

In most participants, the amount of food consumed decreased significantly as the duration of sleep increased, she points out. “If healthy sleep habits are maintained over a longer period of time, this will eventually lead to clinically significant weight loss,” concludes Tasali.