Using weekends to catch up on more sleep is not healthy, study says

According to research from the University of Colorado Boulder, people who used their weekends to catch up on sleep gained more weight and showed declines in insulin sensitivity compared to those who got a regular good night's sleep.

Their study was published Thursday in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.

The study featured 36 adults asked to stay at a research center for two weeks on the University of Colorado campus.

They were split up into three groups: one group allowed to sleep nine hours a night, a second group restricted to five hours of sleep nightly, and a third group given five days of five-hour sleep nights followed by a "weekend" where they could sleep as long as they want. After the two days, they returned to their five-hour-a-night sleep schedule.

During a nine-day period, participants' sleep, exposure to light and food intake were monitored closely, say researchers.

The groups with less sleep snacked more at night, gained more weight, and saw their insulin sensitivity drop compared to the group getting nine hours a night, said the study. The group that received two days to catch up on sleep saw some small improvements that were lost once they returned to a shorter sleep schedule.

"In the end, we didn’t see any benefit in any metabolic outcome in the people who got to sleep in on the weekend," Chris Depner, an assistant research professor of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement.  

In some cases, insulin sensitivity among members of the group with the weekend to catch up declined more than those who consistently slept five hours a night, said the study.

Several studies have suggested how important getting enough sleep is to staying healthy. In January, a study from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found sleeping less than six hours a night could increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.

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