A new study conducted by researchers from UC Berkeley found that sleep deprivation increases a person's craving for junk food.
People nowadays are often left sleep deprived. Household chores, office hours, commuting to work and family responsibilities tend to take up most of our waking hours and hence, people make up for lost time by compromising on their sleep.
However, this is not advisable, say many researchers. Sleep deprivation leads to several health problems and one of them is obesity. One of the many causes of obesity is the consumption of excess junk food. In a study conducted consumption of junk food, researchers from UC Berkeley found that people who are sleep deprived crave for junk food.
The study analyzed 23 healthy adults, first after a night of good sleep and then after a sleepless night. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers found that after a sleepless night, the brain tends to function improperly in the frontal lobe that is responsible for making complex decisions but activity increases in the deeper brain centers that respond to rewards.
"What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep, while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified," said Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, in a press statement.
Walker confirmed that this change in brain activity resulted in people consuming more high-calorie food and explains why people who sleep less are often over-weight or obese.
