7 February, 2013
MessageToEagle.com – Is what you eat playing a role in how much you sleep?
Researchers say: yes!
For the first time that Certain nutrients may play an underlying role in short and long sleep duration and that people who report eating a large variety of foods — an indicator of an overall healthy diet — had the healthiest sleep patterns, according to new results obtained by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sleep, like nutrition and physical activity, is a critical determinant of health and well-being. With the increasing prevalence of obesity and its consequences, sleep researchers have begun to explore the factors that predispose individuals to weight gain and ultimately obesity.
“Although many of us inherently recognize that there is a relationship between what we eat and how we sleep, there have been very few scientific studies that have explored this connection, especially in a real-world situation,” said Michael A. Grandner, PhD, instructor in Psychiatry and member of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at Penn. “
In general, we know that those who report between 7 — 8 hours of sleep each night are most likely to experience better overall health and well being, so we simply asked the question “Are there differences in the diet of those who report shorter sleep, longer sleep, or standard sleep patterns?”
| For the current study, researchers used the survey question regarding how much sleep each participant reported getting each night to separate the sample into groups of different sleep patterns.
Sleep patterns were broken out as “Very Short” (<5 h per night), ”Short” (5-6 h per night), ”Standard’ (7-8h per night), and ”Long” (9 h or more per night). NHANES participants also sat down with specially trained staff who went over, in great detail, a full day’s dietary intake. This included everything from the occasional glass of water to complete, detailed records of every part of each meal. With this data, the Penn research team analyzed whether each group differed from the 7-8 hour “standard” group on any nutrients and total caloric intake. |
Related articles
- Eat to dream: Study shows dietary nutrients associated with certain sleep patterns (medicalxpress.com)
- Diet Affects Sleep Patterns, Study Finds (huffingtonpost.com)
- Study Finds How Much You Sleep Is Closely Tied To What You Eat (philadelphia.cbslocal.com)
- Eat to Dream: Study Shows Dietary Nutrients Associated With Certain Sleep Patterns (jflahiff.wordpress.com)
- Does Your Diet Influence How Well You Sleep? (healthland.time.com)
- Does your diet influence how well you sleep? (cnn.com)
- Study: How Well You Sleep is Closely Tied to Your Diet (healthland.time.com)
- Your Diet May Be Affecting How You Sleep (voicerussia.com)
- Want to Limit Overeating? Get More Sleep (psychologytoday.com)
