Healthy sleep cycles balance hormones and burn fat

by Dr. David Jockers, citizen journalist


(NaturalNews) It is no secret that our society struggles with weight loss resistance. Researchers at John Hopkins University estimate that by the year 2015 over 75% of Americans will be overweight with a staggering 41% being obese. Many people claim the country's propensity to overeat and indulge on junk food on a lack of will power; however, science is now showing it may be related to our hormones. New research is showing that healthy sleep cycles have been shown to balance the hormones responsible for food cravings and overeating.

Ghrelin is a hormone that is produced by the stomach during times of famine. This hormone, isolated and named in 1999, stimulates hunger and digestive function. When we fast for several hours, our body begins to increase ghrelin production which interacts with the neurons in the metabolic control center of our hypothalamus, and we begin to feel hungry.

Leptin is a hormone secreted by our fat cells that interacts with the hypothalamus and creates feelings of satiety that shut down our hunger center. When we fast, ghrelin levels rise. When we eat, insulin and leptin levels rise and ghrelin levels drop. Higher levels of ghrelin have been associated with cravings for sugar-rich, calorie-dense junk food.

Many people go on calorie restricted diets in order to lose weight. However, calorie restriction leads to dramatic increases in ghrelin secretion. This results in uncontrollable hunger and eventual over-eating. This is the hormone responsible for the classic starvation-binge cycle that ruins so many weight loss pursuits. This is also why deprivation based weight loss programs have a very poor long-term success rate.

Sleep may be the Most Important Lifestyle Factor for Weight Loss. Researchers at Stanford University found that people who sleep 5 hours or less per night had a 15% greater amount of ghrelin and 15% less leptin than those who slept 8 hours a night. Another study showed that sleep deprived individuals had a significantly greater craving for carbohydrate rich junk food.

Leptin and ghrelin work as a check and balance system to control feelings of fullness & hunger. Poor sleep cycles drive leptin down and increase ghrelin. This drives the individual to have less satisfaction after eating and instead to crave more food leading to weight gain. Overtime the individual will become leptin resistant, which virtually shuts down the body's ability to effectively burn fat. The sleep hormone melatonin has been shown to help heal leptin receptors and restore normal leptin sensitivity, which is critical for healthy weight loss and fat burning mechanisms in the body. Sleep deprived individuals do not secrete enough melatonin to restore normal leptin function.

Sleeping has also been shown to enhance human growth hormone (HGH) secretion, which is our body's natural anti-aging hormone. HGH secretion switches our metabolism to burn fat, build muscle, & boost immunity. Elevated insulin levels are antagonistic to HGH. Therefore, eating food (particularly carbohydrate rich food) before we sleep at night is detrimental to our efforts to effectively burn fat.

Keys to a Good Night Sleep:

1) Do not eat within 3 hours of sleep

2) Eat low carbohydrate meals throughout the day and particularly at night.

3) Keep your bedroom cool (around 70 degrees F)

4)Light inhibits melatonin secretion so keep your bedroom as dark as possible.

5) If you must eat before bed - have good fat/protein such as a shake with coconut milk, almond butter, cinnamon, & stevia.

6)Regular movement throughout the day helps burn off metabolic waste in muscles and cells allowing the body to relax more effectively.

7)Avoid caffeine and stimulants after 3pm

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I do all 7 and still have issues sleeping.

A Melatonin supplement 1/2 hour before sleep, used in a dark room helps lots of people to sleep. Dosages as small as 1/2 mg are effective.

But you may find you need more. I take 6mg about an hour before I go to bed.

F,LUX is a free software program that dims your monitor so it's less likely to disrupt melatonin secretion.

Melatonin is FAR MORE important than most people realise.
It has almost the same range of activities as vitamin d and if you understand vitamin d you'll know that takes some beating.
It's a major anti inflammatory agent so having your whole system bathed in anti inflammatory melatonin each night is incredibly restorative. It also PROTECTS your mitochondria. These are energy producing engines and dysfunctional mitochondria are the root cause of metabolic conditions diabetes obesity etc.

I used to take ambien every night, but have tried to do everything to get off ambien, which I have, but I struggle to sleep

I'm taking a supplement that includes melatonin with many other things and it does help, but I've always stuggled with sleep. Many things have helped, such that I sleep with a sleep mask every single night. I have a noise maker for ambient noise that helps me and then I take a pill at night that includes the following:

calcium 40mg
magnesium 30mg
valerian root 100mg
chamomile flower 75mg
hops flower 75mg
scullcap herb 75mg
L-Taurine 50mg
Passionflower 50mg
GABA 25mg
Melatonin 3mg

I've been thinking about start making loose leaf Chamomile tea every night, since I can't seem to find too many side effects on Chamomile compared to other things. I just read an article about foods that help you sleep, so I was thinking about trying to eat salad every dinner chia seeds that is supposed to be loaded with tryptophan that helps people sleep I guess.

These are only short term expedients if that.

Some people find they need more than 3mg. I take 6mg time release. I've tried less and I wake up 3am and then have problems getting back to sleep.

I find an eye mask helpful as well.

Not tried that but will consider.

Not a significant amount. Look at the RDA, Use and online calcium calculator, work out how much extra calcium, if any, you require and then use an effective amount to make up the difference.

again not an effective or even potential useful amount. If you want to have any hope whatsoever of cracking magnesium deficiency you'll need to consider 3) Magnesium--I generally advise supplementation with the well-absorbed forms, magnesium glycinate (400 mg twice per day) or magnesium malate (1200 mg twice per day). Because they are well-absorbed, they are least likely to lead to diarrhea (as magnesium oxide commonly does). or
Formula to Calculate Magnesium Daily Requirement-
5 to 10 milligrams per day per kilo of ideal body weight or 2.5 to 4.5 milligrams per day per pound of ideal body weight.
Messing around with 30mg magnesium is a waste of time and money.
These sound a reasonable blend but without correcting the underlying magnesium deficiency probably not sufficient.

Maybe fine for some readers but not everyone.

Probably helpful.

Hopefully you will let us know how it goes.
Always worth hearing what works and what doesn't, so either way it's valuable information.

[QUOTE=Ted_Hutchinson;175673]
Messing around with 30mg magnesium is a waste of time and money.
These sound a reasonable blend but without correcting the underlying magnesium deficiency probably not sufficient.

[QUOTE]

I've neve thought about increasing my magnesium to be completely honest. Right now my multi has 33mg and then at night taking another 30mg. At one time I was doubling on this sleep pill and taking two, which doubled everything.

Every few nights I use sleepy time tea extra, which really seems to help me when I take it with the pill.

Do you think I should double the pills as I did before or maybe not taking the pills and see if getting magnesium supplement would help me?

My concern just like taking ambien would be long term side effects. I've read a few mixed things about the long term effects of melatonin, but not sure if there's been any more studies.

Well you should. Currently the average US adult gets in the region of 150mg/d and the RDA is around 350mg/d so most people are magnesium deficient. [url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2955638/?tool=pubmed]Here is a study showing that kids with ADHD improved the assessment by SDQ revealed fewer emotional problems at the end of the study period compared to baseline and also sleeping disorders. Mainly problems to fall asleep, decreased during the 12 week nutritional therapy.

Oral Mg(2+) supplementation reverses age-related neuroendocrine and sleep EEG changes in humans.

Most people who try adding magnesium chloride or magnesium sulphate )dead sea salts/epsom salts) to bathwater find they have a better nights sleep.

Don't know what form is in your tablets but most often when it's used with other ingredients they use magnesium oxide. Only 4% of which is bioavailable so you are actually absorbing 4% of whatever it adds up to. It will be totally insufficient to do any good when your body actually requires an additional 500~ 600mg/daily extra to build up depleted reserves.


I think a proper strength magnesium chelate would be the best idea and a separate melatonin.

About 600 papers each year over the last 5 yrs. Roughly 2 new papers each day. Plenty to keep me interested. See it's role in cancer prevention, diabetes, mental health, mitochondrial function, blood pressure it also protects liver function. It's all good stuff job to find anything remotely negative.

The administration of nightly melatonin, magnesium, and zinc appears to improve the quality of sleep and the quality of life in long-term care facility residents with primary insomnia.

Thanks Ted
When I run out of the pills, I'm going to start looking at seperating the melatonin and try seperate magnesium, but might not be for a little while when I run out of my current supplements. I'll report back if it helps me or not.

One thing I noticed is that when I started to take D3 vitamins that I slept better than I ever slept my entire life, but then it didn't appear to make any difference. The first week or two I was sleeping amazing when I started to take D3

I just read this article, which seemed to have a lot of good information that I really enjoyed read and it mentions magnesium
https://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART02037/sleep-aid

One thing I keep seeing for herbal tea is chamomile and many times I see valerian instead, which the article above only mentions valerian tea, but then I saw this report that indicates it doesn't really help at all that's only a few years old.
https://faculty.washington.edu/vitiel...n%20Review.pdf

Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder Unit, Broadmoor Hospital

Abstract

Insomnia is a problem commonly identified by remand prisoners who also have a concurrent dual diagnosis of substance misuse and mental health problems. Historically, sleep problems in prison have been treated with either hypnotics or benzodiazepines but these cause adverse side effects and are often misused. Valerian teabags were introduced in 2004 but their efficacy was untested within the prison setting. The aim of this study was to establish whether Valerian teabags improve subjective sleep quality for men with sleep disturbance and dual diagnosis in a remand prison setting within a 14-day period. The findings show that herbal alternatives appear to improve sleep quality for prisoners with complex needs.

Many prisoners have asked if they can take a supply of tea bags with them when they leave
I think if they work in prison they should work anywhere.

I just read this article on some possible long term effects on melatonin
https://www.digitaljournal.com/article/263279

Do you think people with diabetes need to protect the little remaining pancreatic function they have or not?

THE STUDY OF MELATONIN PROTECTIVE ACTIVITY ON PANCREATIC β-CELLS UNDER THE CONDITION OF ALLOXAN-INDUCED DIABETES DURING AGINg[quote]The aim of our research was to study the influence of melatonin on pancreatic β-cells under the condition of alloxan-induced Diabetes Mellitus - especially in old age, when the mentioned disease frequently takes place.
56 male white rats were used in the study.
Two age groups were selected: adult period of life and late senescent period of life.
This number of rats was divided into three groups:
I - experimental group (10 adult and 10 old animals),
II - experimental group (10 adult and 10 old animals), and
III - control group (8 adult and 8 old animals).
On the 1st day of experiment the animals of I and II experimental groups were injected with alloxan at a single dose of 60 mg/kg (into the tail vein) for Diabetes Mellitus induction.
The animals of II experimental group were also given melatonin (0,15mg/kg) daily during the 14 days.
During the experiment 2 old rats from I experimental group died. In III - control group the intact animals have been used.
After stopping of the experiment (15th day), under the ether narcosis the animals were sacrificed.
The tissue taken from pancreas has been processed for electron microscopy.
Ultrastructural study was performed using electronograms.

In each experimental case 100 β-cells have been studied.. Results of research were studied statistically using computer program SPSS v.12.

The results of ultrastructural study of pancreatic β-cells have shown that in mentioned cells of animals from I experimental group ultrastructural peculiarities are markedly changed as compared with the norm, and β-cells' injury (in some cases - irreversible changes) are prominent.

The mentioned changes are more prominent in old organisms, than in adult ones.

In most of pancreatic β-cells of animals from II experimental group ulstrastructural peculiarities are not changed as compared with the norm: ultrastructures of β-cells of animals from II experimental group in both age groups are markedly defended against the damage, which suggests that melatonin has a protective activity on pancreatic β-cells.

We recommend that melatonin be taken with anti-diabetic drugs, especially in senescent period of life.[/url]

Here is another showing the protective effect of melatonin on pancreatic cells
Melatonin pre-intervention is able to increase SOD level and decrease MDA, TNFα levels, thereby reducing pancreatic injury. The MT1 might play an important role in the pathogenesis of ANP. MT might exert protective effects for the pancreas in ANP rats through increase the expression of MT1.

It helps protect pancreas against cancer as well.
The combined administration of capecitabine and melatonin provided an improvement in antioxidant status as well as a synergistic antitumoral effect in experimental pancreatic cancer.

Thus melatonin treatment was found to promote the spontaneous regeneration process of pancreatic tissue. Which is precisely the effect Diabetics should be looking for.

The article you quoted was worrying about the effect of melatonin on insulin secretion.
Normally natural melatonin secretion starts around 8~9 pm after people have eaten and require an insulin release Melatonin secretion stops during the night and hopefully people will get outside into the bright light when they go to work.
we know there is a problem with breakfast for diabetics because that is when they get their highest blood glucose readings following that first meal of the day. If they skip breakfast and eat later after the melatonin secreted during the night has worn off then they will be able to see what the response is.
Diabetics are not all stupid. Most are capable of testing their blood glucose and noticing what the effect of different foods is. They are also generally smart enough to notice if taking a melatonin tablet a couple of hours after their last meal of the day and an hour or so before going to bed alters the reading they get after breakfast the next morning.
Knowing the protective and restorative benefits that melatonin has been shown to produce in pancreas will I am sure influence the most intelligent to make a sensible decision. If you can't get outside then invest in a SADLIGHT that will switch off natural melatonin secretion in the morning..

Less need for insulin a surprising effect of phototherapy in insulin dependent diabetes mellitus
R.F. Nieuwenhuis, P.F.M.J. Spooren, J.J.D. Tilanussummary
A 40-year-old woman with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus was treated successfully with phototherapy for a seasonal affective disorder. Following sessions of phototherapy she developed hypoglycaemias and required less insulin. A review of the literature showed that melatonin has an inhibiting effect on insulin sensitivity. The melatonin secretion, which is suppressed by phototherapy, may cause an immediate decrease in the plasma glucose levels. This decrease may well be important for patients with insulin-resistant diabetes mellitus and seasonal affective disorder.

By the way you can buy melatonin in both time release and normal forms. The type that release all the melatonin at one go may be better for diabetics than the time release forms as these will be adding to melatonin levels for longer and there will be more chance of it remaining in the morning. But providing people are aware of the potential they should be able to work out how it affects their blood glucose levels before and after breakfast and adjust time and form of melatonin to achieve optimum results.

Thanks Ted for all the info
Really appreciate it.

One quick question:
I normally take my pills twice a day. Basically with breakfast and then with dinner or an hour or so going to bed, so I'm wondering if I should do this with magnesium or is it just better to not split it and take it at night instead?

Magnesium is naturally calming. That should give you a hint.

__________________
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- Jim

�Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.� Sir Winston Churchill