Sleeping more than 8 hours a night may help you stay slim
By ANI | ANI – Tue 1 May, 2012 12:46 PM IST
Melbourne, May 1 (ANI): Adding a few hours sleep to your night may prevent you from gaining weight.
A new study has found that sleeping more than nine hours a night appears to suppress genetic factors that lead to weight gain.In contrast, getting too little sleep seems to have the opposite effect.
Previous research has shown an association between poor sleep and obesity, but the new findings reveal a complex interaction between sleep and genetic factors linked to body weight.
Scientists made the discovery after studying 1088 pairs of identical and non-identical twins.
Twin studies help researchers unravel genetic and environmental influences. Only identical twins share the same genes, and are therefore subject to the same genetic effects, so differences between them are likely to be due to environmental factors.
