Is your smart phone making you fat?

How many of you get into bed with your smart phone?  My husband spends hours answering emails and reading on his iPhone.  Well it could not only disrupt your sleep but make you fat as well.  Yes, your smart phone could be responsible for your weight gain.

I have spoken before about the importance of sleep for good health and how the type of light emitted but smart phones, laptops and tablets can disrupt your sleep patterns by making the brain think it is still daylight.  However, it seems it goes deeper still.  The disruption of our body cycles by blue light can not only stop us sleeping well it can also make us fat.  How?  By not sleeping well!

Experts are saying that the light from gadget screens, computers and even street lights, can cause weight gain because it harms the production of melatonin or the "sleep hormone".

Healthy levels of melatonin promote regular sleep patterns, which helps the body to turn food and drink into energy efficiently.

The body's sleep cycles become disturbed when the production of melatonin is harmed, and this stops the body processing foods adequately.

A new study carried out by investigators at Manchester University, is analyzing how regulating sleep patterns might help people who already have diabetes - a disease associated to obesity.  Although the study is far from finished, the team has already found a link between circadian patterns (the regulation of our internal clocks and our sleep) and diseases like obesity and diabetes.

Dr. Simon Kyle, a sleep researcher at Manchester University's School of Psychological Sciences, said
that blue light - the kind emitted by phones and laptops - is the most damaging to our sleep, and consequently affects our metabolism, and concludes that improving sleep could help stem the obesity epidemic.

"We are interested in how an alteration in the sleep - wake pattern may be involved in the onset of diabetes and obesity and if, when you improve the timing of sleep, you can also have a positive effect on conditions like diabetes and obesity.

"A lot of people are interested in this at the moment given that as a 24-hour society, sleep deprivation is increasing and we are exposing ourselves to artificial light at night.

"We are trying to extend the waking day into our sleep period and there is not enough protection of sleep.

"There is a lot of research showing we are meant to be asleep at night, when darkness falls and melatonin rises, and when the sun rises the melatonin is blocked by the sun.  This light-dark cycle is good for our bodies to predict changes in the environment." Says Dr. Simon Kyle.

Manchester University isn't the only one studying the effects of light, sleep and melatonin production.  Scientists at the University of Granada, Spain, have discovered that melatonin injections helped combat obesity and diabetes in rats by regulating their systems.

Earlier research from the US has suggested that using a computer or smart phone at night can cause weight gain as it increases hunger levels - even after a person has eaten a satisfying meal.

Results of the US study show that blue-enriched light exposure, compared with dim light exposure, was associated with an increased in hunger that began 15 minutes after light onset and was still present almost 2 hours after the meal.

Ivy Cheung of Northwestern University, Chicago and co-author of the study said;

"A single three-hour exposure to blue-enriched light in the evening actually impacted hunger and glucose metabolism." 

Dr. Kyle advises against using phones, tablets and laptops in the evening before bed.  My advice would be to also sleep in as dark a room as possible.  You can take melatonin supplements but I would advise to start taking as low a dose as possible and see how it works for you.  You can up the dose if need be.

I can help you improve your health.  If you would like to make an appointment with me either in person or via Skype, just send me an email to lucycarr@socialnutrition.com