Caloric and Macronutrient Intake and Meal Timing Responses to Repeated Sleep Restriction Exposures Separated by Varying Intervening Recovery Nights in Healthy Adults

Abstract

Sleep restriction (SR) reliably increases caloric intake. It remains unknown whether such intake cumulatively increases with repeated SR exposures and is impacted by the number of intervening recovery sleep opportunities. Healthy adults (33.9 ± 8.9y; 17 women, Body Mass Index: 24.8 ± 3.6) participated in a laboratory protocol. N = 35 participants experienced two baseline nights (10 h time-in-bed (TIB)/night; 22:00–08:00) followed by 10 SR nights (4 h TIB/night; 04:00–08:00), which were divided into two exposures of five nights each and separated by one (n = 13), three (n = 12), or five (n = 10) recovery nights (12 h TIB/night; 22:00–10:00). Control participants (n = 10) were permitted 10 h TIB (22:00–08:00) on all nights. Food and drink consumption were ad libitum and recorded daily. Compared to baseline, sleep-restricted participants increased daily caloric (+527 kcal) and saturated fat (+7 g) intake and decreased protein (−1.2% kcal) intake during both SR exposures; however, intake did not differ between exposures or recovery conditions. Similarly, although sleep-restricted participants exhibited substantial late-night caloric intake (671 kcal), such intake did not differ between exposures or recovery conditions. By contrast, control participants showed no changes in caloric intake across days. We found consistent caloric and macronutrient intake increases during two SR exposures despite varying intervening recovery nights. Thus, energy intake outcomes do not cumulatively increase with repeated restriction and are unaffected by recovery opportunities.

Influence of nutrition and food on sleep—is there evidence?

“…In a randomized controlled trial [ 39 ] with 224 participants, 198 subjects were sleep restricted to 4 h time in bed (TIB) and 27 controls subjects received 10 h TIB over a period of 5 nights. With a control group of 10 subjects, 35 participants spent after two baseline nights ten nights with restricted sleep (4 h) in two exposures of five nights each.…”

Adolescent chronic sleep restriction promotes alcohol drinking in adulthood: evidence from epidemiological and preclinical data

“…In addition to heightened impulsivity and changes in emotional responses, altered regulation of reward processes [77,78] and changes in preference for caloric beverages [79][80][81][82] may be also linked to sleep loss and increase alcohol consumption. While here we did not measure overall 28 caloric intake, we attempted to control for this confounding factor by giving the rats ab libitum access to food throughout the experiment.…”

Impact of diet on human nutrition, immune response, gut microbiome, and cognition in an isolated and confined mission environment

“…However, intake may have been confounded by the sleep deprivation schedule associated with these missions, which allowed for 5 h of sleep per night for 5 nights each week and 8 h of sleep per night for two nights each week. Sleep deprivation has been associated with increased food consumption 47 , and may have improved food consumption in these missions. However, the subjects commented consistently in debriefs that despite not getting to choose their foods pre-mission, the variety and quality available was adequate for this mission length.…”