Two infamous aspects of the college
life are the all-nighters and freshman 15. The former being staying up late or
in extreme cases being up all night. The latter being about the weight one
gains while in college. Interestingly, a study could possibly indicate that
these two might be related. It is known that sleep deprivation can lead to a
multitude of problems, however an interesting one is obesity. There are recent
studies that help one understand why sleep deprived individuals crave food.
In the article “Poor Sleep Gives
You the Munchies, Study Say” by New York Times Jonah Bromwich details the
study, in which involved 14 health non-obese subjects, between the ages of 18
and 30. They were randomly assigned to
two conditions; 4 nights of healthy normal sleep or 4 nights of sleep
deprivation. Each were given two regular meals and unlimited access to snacks.
The subject in the experimental condition said that they felt hungrier and had
more trouble controlling themselves with snacks. After performing a sleep
study, the subjects sleep restriction led to amplified endocannabinoid levels
in the blood. Which then increased in the early afternoon. Other previous studies have shown that sleep
deprived individuals are vulnerable to foods that are high in fat and carbs. Surprisingly,
sleep deprivation can result in the activation of the same brain receptors that
are the activated by marijuana. Marijuana effect on the brain receptors results
in the infamous munchies.
Recently, our seminar class had
someone come in who is currently studying circadian rhythms, Loyola’s very own Dr. Dan
Cavanaugh. He gave a talk about circadian rhythms, which are an endogenous
timing mechanism that allows organisms to adapt to environmental stimuli by
synchronizing physiology and behavior in anticipation of environmental change. This
system consists of three components, the firsts is the input pathways, which
relay environmental stimuli such as temperature, light, and food availability
to the second component; the core clock. The core clock is a population of
neurons called clock cells that contain a molecular clock that tracks time with
a cycle of approximately 24 hours. The final component is the output pathways,
which couple the clock cells to behavioral and physiological changes that
generate circadian rhythms in a multitude of different behaviors.
Hormone release, blood pressure,
and body temperature, are all processes that fluctuate daily with a circadian
pattern. Hormones are important for one’s diet. One hormone of note that is
under circadian control is cortisol. Cortisol is a steroid hormone released by
the adrenal cortex in response to stress. Dr. Cavanaugh did make note of why we
shouldn’t eat late. He stated that our hormone levels that are important for the
breakdown of food are lowest at night and one of cortisol’s important function
is that it helps in the metabolism of fat, protein, and carbs. Thus, this hormone
is under circadian control, where the levels of circulating cortisol peak in
the morning around and reaches its low levels at midnight. Implying that our
bodies will end up storing late night food as fat. Generally, at night we end
having a craving for sweets or greasy food, which are even harder for our
bodies to breakdown. There is also the
factor that we could result in having more than one all-nighter, which then
results in a cycle of unhealthy food choices. So then our all-nighter then possibly contribute to the freshman 15.
No comments:
Post a Comment