sleep  deprivation affects fat metabolism- Dr. Rupinder Bedi

A new study adds to mounting evidence that lack of sleep can be harmful, saying that it can make people feel less full after eating, leading to the fat in food being metabolised differently. Published in the journal of Lipid Research, by Pennsylvania State University, the study found that sleep disruption has been known to be have harmful effects on metabolism for some time.

Kelly Ness, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington, ran the study when she was a graduate student in Buxton`s lab. She and other researchers not only collected data but also spent time, “interacting with the subjects, playing games with them, talking with them — helping to keep them awake and engaged and positive.”

After participants spent a week getting plenty of sleep at home, she said, the 15 healthy men in their 20s checked into the sleep lab for the ten-night study. For five of those nights the participants spent no more than five hours in bed each night.

To find out how the uncomfortable schedule affected metabolism, the researchers gave participants a standardized high-fat dinner, a bowl of chili mac, after four nights of sleep restriction. “It was very palatable — none of our subjects had trouble finishing it — but very calorically dense,” Ness said. Most participants felt less satisfied after eating the same rich meal while sleep deprived than when they had eaten it well-rested.

Then researchers compared blood samples from the study participants. They found that sleep restriction affected the postprandial lipid response, leading to faster clearance of lipids from the blood after a meal. That could predispose people to put on weight. “The lipids weren’t evaporating — they were being stored,” Buxton explained.

This study was highly controlled, which makes it an imperfect model for the real world, Ness said. It focused on healthy young people, who are usually at a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and all of the participants were men.

The researchers also wondered whether giving more recovery time would change the magnitude of recovery they observed. Nonetheless, according to Buxton, the study gives worthwhile insight into how we handle fat digestion.