Sleep, Diet & Exercise

Two studies being presented today address the relationships between sleep, diet and exercise.

A study (#1277) being presented later this morning as a poster reports the surprising finding that regular daily exercise did not correlate with total sleep time. Instead, the study found that sleep improved after days of low exertion, and better-rested participants got less exercise and had less calorie expenditure. Possible explanations for these unexpected findings include differences in personality types and the influence of job and life stress.

A study (#0385) being presented this afternoon as an oral presentation found that sleep-restricted participants gained weight over the 11 days of the study even though they reported a decrease in appetite, food cravings and food consumption. The results suggest that energy intake still exceeded energy expenditure during sleep restriction in the sedentary environment of the laboratory.

You can download the SLEEP 2009 abstract supplement as an 11 MB file in PDF format.