Hormonal
Short sleep duration is consistently associated with a significantly increased risk of obesity in both children and adults, with pooled odds ratios of 1.89 for children and 1.55 for adults.
Ensure you are getting sufficient sleep, as short sleep duration is linked to a higher risk of obesity. For adults, this often means aiming for more than 5-6 hours, and for children, more than 10 hours, though individual needs vary. While this study shows association, not causation, optimizing sleep is a low-risk, high-reward strategy for weight management.
In children the pooled OR for short duration of sleep and obesity was 1.89 (1.46 to 2.43; P < 0.0001). In adults the pooled OR was 1.55 (1.43 to 1.68; P < 0.0001).
Why this rating
Large sample size (n>600k) and consistent cross-sectional association, but limited by lack of temporal sequence and potential confounding.
Source
Meta-Analysis of Short Sleep Duration and Obesity in Children and Adults
Francesco P. Cappuccio et al. · SLEEP · 2008
DOI 10.1093/sleep/31.5.619
More from this paper
- Causal inference between short sleep and obesity is difficult due to lack of control for important confounders and inconsistent evidence of temporal sequence in prospective studies.Strong
- In adults, each hour of reduced sleep is associated with a 0.35 unit increase in BMI, suggesting a dose-response relationship.Moderate
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