Mayo Clinic Health System cardiologist Andrew Calvin, MD, discusses the connection between lack of sufficient sleep and heart disease.
“Lack of sleep also is a “weighty” issue. In a 2012 study I conducted, 17 people ages 18 to 40 spent 15 days in our research lab and were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. Half the group was only allowed to sleep two-thirds of their normal sleep time; the other half served as controls and were allowed the full amount,” says Andrew Calvin, M.D., Mayo Clinic Health System cardiologist. “We found that the test group ate an average of 559 additional calories each day. More importantly, it didn’t seem that the people who were awake longer burned more calories from additional activities. Our study concluded that if that rate of consumption kept going, the people who slept less could gain up to one pound a week.”
