Dr Somers explained: “Normally, fat is preferentially deposited subcutaneously or under the skin. However, the inadequate sleep appears to redirect fat to the more dangerous visceral compartment.
“Importantly, although during recovery sleep there was a decrease in calorie intake and weight, visceral fat continued to increase. This suggests that inadequate sleep is a previously unrecognised trigger for visceral fat deposition, and that catch-up sleep, at least in the short term, does not reverse the visceral fat accumulation.”
Dr Somers said their findings “implicate inadequate sleep as a contributor to the epidemics of obesity, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases”.
The reason for this is because high levels of visceral fat can increase someone’s likelihood of heart disease and a range of other conditions such as cancer and diabetes.
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