Physical Wellness

Dismissing Alarms on Weekends? You may Have Metabolic Problems

By Kanika Gupta | Update Date: Nov 24, 2015 12:17 PM EST

No matter how much we love to cling to our beds on the weekend, sleeping in can actually have adverse impact on your body, most commonly being the metabolic problems that cause high BMI and insulin resistance. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that adjustments made to sleep time can lead to long-term health problems such as diabetes. There have been studies in the past that discuss the effects of sleep disruption on health. However, this is the first time that a connection has been established between oversleeping and the metabolic problems caused by sleep interruption. When the sleep routine changes, it can throw the body's metabolic cycles off balance with regards to its circadian rhythms. Lead author of the study, Patricia Wong at the University of Pittsburgh and her colleagues studied the sleep habits, diet and overall health of over 400 middle-aged participants, for the purpose of this study. During the 7-day study period, the participants had to wear the motion-monitoring wrist accelerometer, reports Beacon Transcript.

According to the findings of the study, the 85% of the participants slept in and 15% shifted their sleep schedules. Majority of people slept for additional 44 minutes while the others slept in for 2-3 hours. Most participants wanted to sleep in on weekends so that they could make up for the lost sleep during work weeks. However, previous studies show that trying to catch up on lost sleep does not help people that are sleep deprived. Researchers say that the larger the sleep gap between workday and weekend, the higher becomes the risk of developing health problems related to your metabolic rate. Bigger waist is a sign of poor sleep patterns and higher BMI as well as good cholesterol, according to Beacon Transcript.

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