If you’re looking to lose weight ahead of beach season, a new study says you should be just as concerned with counting sheep as you are with counting calories. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that participants who got less sleep actually ended up snacking more and packing on more pounds. Sixteen men and women took part in the study, with some of the participants sleeping nine hours per night and some only getting five hours of shut-eye. Those getting less sleep generally had smaller breakfasts but they ate much more when it came to after-dinner snacks.
So even though the ones who slept less actually burned five percent more energy, they also ate six percent more calories. Now that’s food for thought!
High-Fat Diets Could Reduce the Brain’s Ability to Regulate Food Intake
Thursday, January 26, 2023
When high-fat and high-calorie foods are consumed regularly, our brain’s ability to regulate hunger cues, and calorie intake gets reduced. A new study has shown evidence of how continuously eating a fatty diet seems to disrupt the neurological pathway between the brain and the gut.
The cells in charge of signaling the brain when we’ve had enough food are called astrocytes. According to new research published in The Journal of Physiology, calorie intake is regulated in the short term by astrocytes (large star-shaped cells in the brain that regulate many different functions of neurons in the brain). Astrocytes also control the signaling pathway between the brain and the gut, a path that can get interrupted by high calorie diets.
