By now, the connection between sleep and weight gain has been well established. Numerous studies have provided evidence that sleeping too little — less than five hours — messes with your hormones, slows down your metabolism and reprograms your body to eat more.
But just how serious are the consequences in terms of numbers?
A new study published in PLOS One takes a stab at this question by studying the relationship between sleep duration and a number of quantifiable factors: waist circumference, blood pressure, lipids, glucose, thyroid hormones and other important measures of a person’s metabolic profile. The research, led by the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine and the School of Food Science and Nutrition, involved 1,615 people ages 19 to 65 in Great Britain.