It turns out that poor sleep, such as from chronic insomnia, disrupts one of our hunger hormones, which can make us fat.

There are 2 main hormones that control our energy balance by letting our bodies know when we’re hungry and when we’re full.

These 2 hormones are leptin and ghrelin.

Leptin is mostly secreted by fat cells. It lets your brain know how much fat is stored in your body.

A decline in your leptin level makes you hungry while an increase tells your body to burn calories. That’s how leptin affects your weight.

The other hormone, ghrelin, is secreted by your stomach. Its level increases before meals and makes you hungry.

Researchers at UCLA studied 38 men with similar body weights and ages to test the effect of chronic insomnia on these hormone levels and weight gain.

The men were all healthy, but 14 of them suffered from chronic insomnia.

By measuring these hormone levels at different times during the night, the researchers found that leptin levels were about the same between the 2 groups, but ghrelin levels were about 30 percent lower for the insomniacs.

At first glance, these findings didn’t make sense.

After all, lower ghrelin levels among insomniacs should stop their weight gain because it’s the increase in ghrelin that makes us hungry.

But the scientists cross-checked other studies and decided that a hormone switch may occur during the day for the insomnia patients.

Their theory is that poor sleep causes increased ghrelin AND decreased leptin during the day… which doubly increases your appetite when you don’t get enough sleep.

A new study is underway to examine this further.

In the meantime, the evidence suggests that sleep and eating are connected. So one of the best ways to regulate your weight may be to get a good night’s sleep.