'Four nights of poor sleep can make you gain weight'

Just four nights of poor sleep can change the way the body stores fat and increase the risk of obesity, a new small study suggests.

Researchers say participants who were given a high-calorie meal felt less satisfied after eating it while sleep deprived than when they ate it well-rested.

They found that eating rich meals after lack of sleep led to a higher levels of insulin the body and the faster clearance of lipids, or fats, from the meal.

This fat is stored in the body and, in turn, leads to weight gain.

The team, from Pennsylvania State University, says the findings add further evidence to why lack of sleep is harmful and says doctors need to educate their patients about forming good sleep habits.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep every night.

However, a 2015 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that about 50 percent of US adults sleep fewer than the recommended hours.

Insufficient sleep has been shown to raise the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even cancer - but researchers don't know much about the underlying mechanisms that cause this.

For the new study, published in the Journal of Lipid Research, recruited 15 healthy male participants in their 20s.

The men first spent a week getting 10 hours of sleep a night at home and then spent ten nights at the Clinical Research Center at Penn State.