Sleep Diet might have Biological Benefits for People with Genetics that Influence Weight Gain

In an earlier blog entitled 13 diets guaranteed to make you sleep, gag, vomit or bored, I mocked the Sleeping Beauty diet, particularly since Elvis was a fan (look what it did for him).  Mind you the manner in which most SB dieters use this particular bizarre method is they ingest sleeping pills and knock themselves out for 2 – 3 days at a time, sleeping through hunger.  Naturally when they wake up they are somewhat slimmer.  No brainer, that one and absolutely one of the stupidest all time “diets” ever (if you call that a diet).  This is the way NOT to use the SB diet.

Recently I came across an informative article that analyzed the “Sleep Diet“, suggesting it might be “the best way to stay slim for someone with an inherited tendency to put on weight“. Hmm.  How does “someone” know if s/he has an inherited tendency to put on weight?  Sometimes these things appear to run  in families.  Sometimes they don’t. watch debunking obesity myths:genetics vs diet

This study didn’t examine the use of sleeping pills to achieve sleeping slimness. In fact, I am certain it isn’t advocating this unhealthy and unnatural approach to “weight control“.  It advocates that sleeping more than nine hours a night might” suppress genetic factors that lead to weight gain”. There has long been an association established between poor sleep and obesity athough the article didn’t specify “poor sleep”.  Insomnia?  Over-sleeping? It states that there may be an ”interaction between sleep and genetic factors linked to body weight“. The conclusion was this: “the heritability of body mass index (BMI) was twice as high for short than for long sleepers.” watch how to get more sleep lose weight and gain health

There are a few speculations on that one:

1.  it may be that “extended sleep is protective by suppressing expression of obesity genes.” watch george carlin on fat people
2. The results suggest that shorter sleep provides a more permissive environment for the expression of obesity related genes.
3. In their paper, the scientists suggest that hectic modern western lifestyles may contribute to obesity.
4. Sleep may influence weight by affecting hormones, glucose metabolism and inflammation  watch fructose is the cause of the obesity epidemic

Interesting feedback was presented to that study.  Some readers commented more sleep means less activity and might lead to weight gain.  Others suggested more sleep equals less time to eat.  Still others stated they did sleep over nine hours and were still plump.  However none of the responses replied to the genetic factor in the article, so perhaps this is a critical factor that the respondents missed. The significant factor in all of this is not to sleep your life away and certainly not to knock yourself out with sleeping pills to sleep through hunger.  Even if this bizarre approach to weight loss appears to succeed, over time it must provide ill-health effects and it certainly won’t sustain itself.  Eventually the body has to eat, like it or not.  watch pingu: pinga sleepwalks

It seems to me the same old advice applies to a healthy appetite and BMI: try to make healthy choices.  Therein lies the rub beneath most of these oddball diets and supposed weight problems. watch nightline from abc news: obesity in america

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