Too little sleep: correlated with obesity and diabetes

Widespread sleep deprivation could partly explain the current epidemics of both obesity and diabetes, emerging data suggest.

Too little sleep may contribute to long-term health problems by changing the concentrations of hormones that control appetite, increasing food intake, and disrupting the biological clock, according to Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago.

Van Cauter and other researchers discussed possible links between sleep deprivation, expanding waistlines, and obesity-related problems this week in Washington, D.C., at a meeting titled A Scientific Workshop on Sleep Loss and Obesity: Interacting Epidemics.

The article goes on to explain that moderate amounts of sleep, about 8-hours, seems not to correlate with diabetes or obesity.

Each new study seems to say something, but it's never clear just which study one should believe. This one tells us to sleep about 8-hours a night. Seems right to me, but then I sleep about that now. Of course, my waistline isn't what it should be so maybe I should sleep more? Or, should I sleep less but use that "extra" time to exercise? Who can say?