Lack of REM sleep may raise obesity risk in kids

Studies have shown that children and teens who fail to get the proper amount of sleep each night are more prone to obesity, and researchers now think it may be linked to a particular stage of sleep.
They said not spending enough time in rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep -- the type that is normally associated with dreaming -- significantly increased the odds of obesity in children and teens.

"Our results demonstrated that the short sleep-obesity association may be attributed to reduced REM sleep," said Dr. Xianchen Liu of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh reported on Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Ultimately, obesity is the byproduct of taking in more calories than the body needs. But Liu and colleagues wanted to see if they could identify any stage of sleep that appeared especially important.

The researchers studied 335 children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 for three consecutive nights. Their sleep was monitored through polysomnography, which measures sleep cycles and stages by recording brain waves, electrical activity of muscles, eye movement, breathing rate, blood pressure, and other variables.

Weight and height were measured to calculate body mass index, a measure of obesity. They found 15 percent were at risk for becoming overweight and 13 were overweight.

When they compared the sleep patterns among these groups, they found children who were overweight slept about 22 minutes less per night than normal-weight children. They also had shorter REM sleep, less eye activity during REM sleep and a longer wait before the first REM period.

After adjusting for other factors, they found one hour less of total sleep doubled the odds of being overweight, and one-hour less of REM sleep tripled the odds.

"Although the precise mechanisms are currently under investigation, the association between short sleep duration and overweight may be attributed to the interaction of behavioral and biological changes as a result of sleep deprivation," Liu and colleagues wrote.

They said sleep loss causes changes in hormone levels that may affect hunger. It also gives a person more time in which to eat, and makes a person sleepy during the day, which may make them less likely to exercise.

Liu said more research is needed to understand changes in the metabolism that occur when children and teens get too little sleep.

They noted that the obesity rate has more than tripled among children aged 6 to 11 years in the past 30 years, and about 17 percent of U.S. adolescents are now overweight or obese.

Given this, the researchers think doctors, schools and families should step in to ensure that children get enough sleep.

Liu suggests parents establish regular bedtime and wake up times at both weekdays and weekends, improve the sleep environment and address any sleep disorders such as sleep apnea that may be keeping children from getting the sleep they need.

Overweight problems seen even in infants

New research indicates that problems associated with being overweight occur at a much younger age than previously thought.In a study reported in the journal Pediatrics, overweight infants were at increased risk for developmental delays and possibly breathing problems, such as asthma. Moreover, in most cases, parents were unaware of their child's weight problem.

"Although the consequences of infant and childhood excess body weight may seem to manifest in later years, this perception is inaccurate," Dr. Ron Shaoul, from Bnai Zion Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and colleagues warn.

"Our findings indicate a need to intervene during these critical years by adopting proper eating habits and active lifestyles," they add.

The findings are based on two studies. The first involved 2139 infants not older than age 2 who were admitted for any reason to the Bnai Zion Medical Center in 2004 and 2005. The second study was community-based and used parental interviews to assess the problems seen in 79 overweight infants and 144 normal-weight infants.

The infants were considered overweight if they had a body mass index (BMI) above the 85th weight-for-height percentile on 2 or more measurements taken at least 3 months part. This means that 85 percent of children their age and gender have a lower BMI, which is a measure of weight in relation to height.

In the first study, the researchers found that infants between the 85th and 94th weight-for-height percentiles actually had fewer hospital admissions and repeat admissions than normal-weight infants. However, higher than expected admission rates were seen in the most overweight infants (95th or higher percentile).

In the second study, overweight infants were more likely than their normal-weight peers to have developmental delays and snoring. There was also evidence that asthma and other breathing problems were more common in overweight infants.

When surveyed, only about 32 percent of mothers with an overweight child believed that their child was overweight.

Parents need to be aware that even infants are at risk for problems related to excess body weight and, therefore, should strive to achieve a normal weight in their young children, Shaoul and colleagues conclude.

SOURCE: Pediatrics, August 2008.

The Cookie Diet

A "Cookie Diet" refers to a diet based on a specially crafted cookie that helps to suppress appetite.

The term "Cookie Diet" has been the subject of a legal battle between two companies that claim to own the rights to the phrase. Those companies are Smart for Life, and Dr Sanford Seigal.

UPDATE July 2007 (Dr Sanford won a preliminary injunction with regard to the Cookie Diet trademark - Smart for Life has been ordered to stop using the name Cookie Diet).

Dr. Seigal first experimented with a cookie formula in 1975. He believe that - for many people - obesity was caused by a faulty thyroid gland.

The basic idea is to consume 6 cookies per day along with a single meal at dinner time. The dinner should be high in lean protein.

Some critics claim a cookie-diet is far too low in calories and is unsustainable.

Source:http://www.diet-blog.com/archives/2005/05/26/the_cookie_diet.php

Can You Lose Weight on a Cookie Diet?

Dr. Sanford Siegal makes a weight-loss offer that sounds hard to refuse: the Cookie Diet, a pound-shedding program that he says has helped thousands of his patients drop an average of 15 pounds per month.

The key is a carefully crafted cookie recipe, which suppresses hunger, paired with very specific dinner menu, said Siegal of Siegal Medical Group in Miami.

"On this diet, you have one meal only: dinner," Siegal said. "The dinner consists of 6 ounces of chicken, turkey, fish or seafood."

Along with the lean meat choices, the diet allows one cup of vegetables with dinner. Red meats are discouraged because of their high fat content. The rest of the diet consists of exactly six hunger-suppressing cookies per day, which are baked in Siegal's own bakery in Miami and available only to patients in Siegal's clinics (five in Florida, and one in Montreal.)

The cookies are not for breakfast or for lunch, but rather for whenever the dieter is hungry, though they must eat six a day. The six cookies, plus the one dinner, adds up to 800 calories. Dieters should also consume eight glasses of liquid a day, which includes coffee and tea, Siegal says.

Too Few Calories?

Critics say the diet's requirement of 800 calories a day is too low, and that it lacks nutritional staples that give us the vitamins and minerals we need.

"It's really just another fad diet that will hook people in with the gimmick of being able to eat cookies all day," said Amy Campbell, a nutrition and diabetes educator at the Joslin Clinic in Boston. "While this sounds appealing, a closer look at the details reveals that this is not a nutritious eating plan at all."

The 800 calories a day is below that which is recommended for safe and effective weight loss, and the diet is woefully lacking in fruits and vegetables, as well as calcium, vitamin D4 and fiber, she said.

Siegal says that there have been no problems with the diet in terms of patient safety, and that it is supplemented with vitamins.

Unlike diet pills designed to suppress your appetite, the cookies do not have drugs in them, Siegal said. Instead, the cookies contain amino-acids in the form of hunger-suppressing proteins: oats, rice, whole wheat flour, bran.

"We've worked with this mixture over the years to the point it works quite well as an appetite suppressant," Siegal said. "And it enables someone to eat an 800-calories-a-day diet and not get hungry."

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125395