Fed II Star - May 28, 2006 - Official News 10

REAL LIFE NEWS: SLEEP AND GET SLIM

Here's one of those scientific discoveries that sounds really fantastic. Apparently, if you want to lose weight, you should have a nap. Excellent news for the lazy, on several different levels!

A study of more than 68,000 women has found that those who sleep less than 5 hours a night gain more weight over time than those who sleep 7 hours a night. This was the work of Sanjay Patel at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. When other differences were taken into consideration, Patel found that the short-sleepers gained 0.7kg more on average over 10 years than the longer-sleepers. The short-sleeping group was also 32% more likely to have gained 15kg or more, and 15% more likely to have become obese. This despite the fact that the short-sleepers ate fewer calories than those in the long-sleep group.

Patel suggests that this startling finding may be due to a lower metabolic rate, or perhaps less fidgeting leading to less sleep. "It obviously also suggests that getting people to sleep more might be a relatively easy way to help people lose weight," he says.

Well, quite! So next time someone tells me I should get out of bed earlier and go jogging, I shall simply reply that by sleeping late, I am losing weight!