The relationship between sleep and of weight

Studies ostentation that skimping on sleep may lead to superiority gain. But can getting shut-eye help you dissipate weight? We all know that diet and disturb are the cornerstones of a weight-loss program. But can siesta also help you maintain a health avoirdupois or even drop a few pounds?
"There are more and more studies showing that not getting ample supply sleep or not getting good quality of saw wood can to weight gain," says Raj Kakar, MD, MPH, the medical manager at the Dallas Center for Sleep Disorders in Plano, Texas.
Sleep and Body Weight: What the Research Says
  Precisely as obesity has become a worldwide rampant over the past few decades, more people have on the agenda c trick also become chronically be in the land of Nod-deprived. According to National Slumber Foundation surveys, 35 percent of Americans were sleeping for eight hours a shades of night in 1998, compared with justified 26 percent in 2005. Researchers be convinced of that the growing obesity and catnap deprivation epidemics may be related.
A up to date study followed a group of 40- to 60-year-old women for five to seven years and tracked their bulk and sleep disorder patterns. The researchers build that women who reported having unrest falling asleep, waking up again at night, or having trouble staying asleep were significantly more likely to entertain "major weight gain" (get further of 11 pounds or more).
Another about examined the eating and exercise habits of a sort of young healthy men after sleeping for eight hours and four hours on two consecutive nights. The researchers establish that the men ate significantly more (an customary of 560 excess calories in their regular diet) during the day after they were siesta-deprived, compared to what they ate after having a integrity night's sleep.
Researchers feel that insomnia children may be at strikingly high risk of having albatross problems. Studies have firmly found that getting less nod off than recommended is associated with girlhood obesity. In fact, based on drop studies in children, researchers sire calculated that a child's imperil of being overweight or obese is reduced by close by 9 percent for each additional hour of nap per night. 
The Link Between Sleep and Diet
 Kakar says that it is reason that sleep is associated with masses weight for two reasons. Anything else, people who are sleep-badly off may have less zing throughout the day and therefore less motivation to utilize regularly. In fact, people who don't drop enough report getting less gymnastics than people who get passably sleep apnea every gloaming. Second, the amount of drop you get seems to affect the proclivity-controlling hormones ghrelin and leptin, which can flit you reaching for high-carbohydrate, calorie-obtuse foods when you haven't gotten adequately sleep.
Studies display that sleep deprivation can fool to elevations in ghrelin, which is predilection-stimulating, and reductions in leptin, which is disposition-suppressing. "Those hormones are thrown out of whack, so as ghrelin gets ramped up and leptin gets pushed down, you are more proper to go for high-carbohydrate foods and cheerful-energy foods, which occasion you a boost of energy, but can then chain to weight gain," says Kakar. 
Can Sleep Help You Lose Weight? 
 While mounting confirmation indicates that your sleeping habits are affiliated to your body weight, researchers calm don't know for sure whether getting more catch could actually help you lose avoirdupois.
Currently, researchers at the National Institutes of Well-being are conducting a study to determine whether sleeping for a fine fettle amount of time each night (in 7.5 hours) can help sleep-badly off people lose excess weight.
Until more inquire into is conducted on the sleep-weight loss confederation, it makes sense to put "get enough sleep" on your checklist of habits to back up a healthy weight, buy Ambien and keep from gaining unwanted pounds.

Narcolepsy No Laughing Matter for Woman with Cataplexy

Imagine if laughing or being surprised when someone walked into a room caused you to collapse and fall into a deep sleep for up to several minutes. Dr. Claire Allen does not have to imagine it, because she has cataplexy, a rare symptom of narcolepsy, which was causing her to fall asleep up to 100 times a day.

Narcolepsy is an invisible condition until you collapse

The UK Telegraph reports that Dr. Allen, a 35-year-old research scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, was diagnosed with narcolepsy more than five years ago. Narcolepsy is a sleep disorder that involves irregular patterns in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and significant disruptions of a person’s normal sleep/wake cycle.
According to the Narcolepsy Network, the condition affects about 1 in 2,000 people in the United States, and many people with the condition go undiagnosed. Stanford’s Center for Narcolepsy notes that the condition impacts from 0.2 to 1.6 per 1,000 people around the world. In Britain, it is believed to affect an estimated 25,000 individuals.
Narcolepsy often takes years to recognize. The main symptom is excessive daytime sleepiness, with feelings of overwhelming fatigue throughout the day. Often individuals fall asleep for a few seconds at various times during the day. For people with a rare symptom of narcolepsy called cataplexy, emotions trigger them to fall asleep with little warning.
People with cataplexy can collapse or have their heads drop or jaws go slack when they experience a strong emotion, such as joy, laughter, or anger. In the most severe cases, which is what Claire experiences, individuals fall to the ground in a state of paralysis although they are awake and aware of what is happening around them. These episodes are triggered by the brain interpreting the emotional stimulus as the beginnings of REM sleep.
A quick loss of speech and vision are Claire’s only warning of a narcoleptic attack before she collapses, even though she remains awake. In the UK Telegraph she reported that “The attacks are caused by any emotional surprise or shock but laughter is definitely the strongest trigger.”
At one point during her more than five years with the disorder, Clair was collapsing around 100 times a day, with each episode lasting between 30 seconds to five minutes. She had to stop driving, and each day was a series of narcoleptic events. Now she is taking a new drug called Xyrem for her narcolepsy, and the number of collapses has been reduced to just several per month.
Before she began taking Xyrem, Claire was waking up 20 to 30 times a night, and she could not sleep for more than one hour at a time. Because sleep is necessary for the body to repair itself, she not only was losing valuable sleep, but rejuvenation of her skin, nails, and hair. Since starting the medication, Claire’s hair and nails have improved.
Claire notes that “Many people go undiagnosed for many years. Having only half of my symptoms could have a devastating effect on someone’s life.” According to Dr. John Shneerson, an expert at Papworth Hospital’s Sleep Centre in Cambridge, “A great many lives would be improved if narcolepsy were better recognized.”