You may be spending very few hours for sleep, you try to relax sleep well and avoid weight gain, that's the message from a recently published study. This interesting study has found that women who sleep 5 hours or less are more prone to weight gain compared to women who sleep 7 hours. Researchers presented this study in the American Thoracic Society International conference in May 2006.

The study was interesting because it showed that women who sleep 5 hours or less per day were 32 percent more at risk of developing significant weight gain compared to women who get 7 hours of sleep. The criteria for significant weight gain mentioned above was a gain in weight of 33 pounds or more. The results of this study also indicated that women who sleep 5 hours or less have 15 percent higher risk of developing obesity during the 16 year study period, compared to women who get 7 hours of sleep. The group in between, who had only 6 hours of sleep per day, had twelve percent higher chance of developing major weight gain and 6% increased risk of obesity compared to women who get 7 hours of sleep per day.

These conclusions are from a large study, comprising of a total of 68,183 middle-aged women, who were enrolled in the Nurses health study. Women who participated in the study were required to state their sleeping habits and asked to report their weights every 2 years of the span 16 years covered by the study. Even at the beginning of the study women who slept 5 hours or less per day on an average had 5.4 extra pounds in their body compared to women who had 7 hours of sleep. The principle investigator of this study, Sanjay Patel MD, who an Associate Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University located in Cleveland, Ohio, says that this is the largest study of sleep habits and weight gain. Dr. Patel says that, this is the first study to show that reduced sleeping lead to weight gain over time.

When they found the difference in weight related to sleeping habits, the researchers tried to analyze if differences in dietary habits and exercise contributed to the risk of weight gain in women who slept less. The findings from the study however suggest that those who are deprived of sleep are actually eating less compared to women who had good sleep. Researchers also enquired and analyzed the physical activity patterns of women who participated in the study, but did not find any significant differences in the exercise patterns between women who had less sleep compared to women who had more sleep. The research data showed that the weight gain in women who sleep less is not explained by overeating or decreased exercises. Researchers believe that women who sleep less may be moving around less outside the spectrum of planned physical activity and may be burning less calories. Researchers suggest that further research is needed to determine the exact reason why women who sleep less gain weight.

From: American Thoracic Society