It makes sense that your sleep quality can have a big impact on how you feel the next day (and often, the day after too, if you try to play sleep catch-up). But new research from Prenuvo, shared exclusively with Women’s Health, suggests how well you sleep may also have far-reaching implications for your brain and body composition. The large study analyzed brain and metabolic biomarker information gathered during MRI scans.
From there, researchers were able to tease out some interesting findings on how your sleep efficiency—or, the amount of time you spend in bed asleep—may impact your brain and body fat. Here's what the study uncovered, plus what healthcare providers want people to take away from it. Meet the experts: Alex Exuzides, PhD, study co-author and vice president of research and medical affairs at Prenuvo; Christopher Winter, MD, sleep specialist at Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It; Mir Ali, MD, medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California; Thomas Michael Kilkenny, DO, director of the Institute of Sleep Medicine at Northwell's Staten Island University Hospital The study, which was presented at the Congress of the European Sleep Research Society, analyzed data from 14,031 adults who underwent whole-body MRI scans at Prenuvo.
Participants also answered questions about how long and how well they slept over the previous month using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)-based questionnaire. The researchers discovered a lot about sleep's potential impact on the body: The study was observational, making it impossible to determine whether sleep patterns or quality caused these differences. But the results still raise some important questions.
This latest data supports what doctors and scientists already know. "There is ample evidence that poor sleep equals more visceral fat," says Christopher Winter, MD, sleep specialist at Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It. Higher levels of visceral fat are linked to cardiovascular disease, chronic inflammation, and more health issues, so you want to minimize it if you can.
When someone has poor sleep, levels of the stress hormone cortisol rise in their body, says Mir Ali, MD, medical director of MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California. These people may also experience more insulin resistance, along with less movement and exercise, Dr. "That can lead to more deposition of fat in the visceral area," Dr.
There is a sweet spot here, though. "Too little or too much sleep can lead to visceral fat production," says Thomas Michael Kilkenny, DO, director of the Institute of Sleep Medicine at Northwell's Staten Island University Hospital. That's not entirely clear.
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