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.
Highlights
Despite recommendations that adults habitually obtain 7–9 h of sleep per night [1], approximately35% of American adults report typically sleeping less than 7 h per night [2]
In support of our first hypothesis, we found that healthy adults increased daily caloric intake by nearly 20%, consumed 7 additional grams of saturated fat per day, and consumed over 600 calories during the late-night period (22:00–03:59) during both sleep restriction exposures
Our findings are consistent with the study by Depner and colleagues that showed caloric intake and other metabolic markers were disrupted during two exposures to sleep restriction separated by two nights of ad libitum recovery sleep [25]
Summary
35% of American adults report typically sleeping less than 7 h per night [2]. This type of chronic partial sleep restriction leads to an accumulation of sleep debt over time accompanied by progressive increases in daytime sleepiness and decrements in cognitive and physiological functioning [3,4,5]. There is growing interest in understanding how repeated exposures to sleep restriction, separated by varying nights of extended recovery sleep, impact waking function [11,12,13,14,15]. A recent study measured psychomotor vigilance test (PVT) performance across three cycles of sleep restriction (two consecutive nights of 3 h time-in-bed (TIB)) and recovery sleep
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