Sleeping in on weekends could be bad for you
March 3, 2016
As much as everyone loves to sleep in, there is no denying that more and more research is coming out stating that oversleeping or interrupting your bodies routine can have horrible affects on your health. This following article written in the New York Times does a great job outlining just how bad sleeping can be on your bodies. Will this research stop you from sleeping in more on the weekends?
Several studies have shown that there is an association between shift work and an increased risk for heart disease and diabetes. Now a new study, in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, has found a similar association in people whose sleeping schedules change on the weekend.
For seven days, 447 men and women ages 30 to 54 wore devices that measured movement and tracked when they fell asleep and woke.
Almost 85 percent of the group went to sleep and woke later on their days off than during the workweek. The researchers found that the greater the mismatch in sleep timing between weekdays and weekends, the higher the metabolic risk. Sleeping late on days off was linked to lower HDL (good) cholesterol, higher triglycerides, higher insulin resistance and higher body mass index. The associations persisted after controlling for physical activity, caloric intake, alcohol use and other factors.
“It’s not clear yet that this is a long-term effect,” said the lead author, Patricia M. Wong, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. “But we think of this as people having to sleep and work out of sync with their internal clock, and that having to be out of sync may be having these health effects.”
Nicholas Bakalar
The New York Times