To Your Heath from Pinnacle!
From a study conducted by the University of
Tsukuba comes strong evidence of a direct link between sugary and high-fat
foods and REM sleep loss.
The university’s researchers in their
International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine have probed this
connection with a new chemical-genetic technique to attempt to reverse the
effect of sleep loss and sucrose consumption.
What is
the Connection?
Until now, what wasn’t so clear is how REM sleep
loss impacts the brain’s messaging, and how that messaging serves to trigger
the desire to eat unhealthy foods.
In a quick summary, the medial prefrontal cortex may play a controlling role in what we
want to eat. When we’re sleep deprived,
an increased desire is triggered for the foods that are best at packing on
unwanted pounds.
What is
REM Sleep?
Most all living creatures sleep, but REM sleep is
unique to mammals, and many aspects of REM sleep have always fascinated – and
perplexed – researchers.
REM sleep is most closely associated with
dreaming. Signs include random or rapid eye movement. Our bodies remain astonishingly still during
REM sleep. Researchers have found that obese people, typically exposed to more
high calorie foods by their lifestyle choices, commonly have increased
prefrontal cortex activity.
Study
Inhibited Mice
Researchers induced REM sleep loss in mice to
block prefrontal cortex neurons and impact the behaviors they control and influence.
This part of the brain plays a major role in how we respond to what we eat – by
taste, smell and texture. Unknown until
now, was how this part of brain also impacts our desire for specific foods that
are fatty and high in sugar, increasingly so when we’re short on sleep.
Sleeping better may even prove to ultimately play
a role in more effective weight control.
So, get your sleep! You’ll feel better, be
healthier and more!
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