Short sleep duration and food intake: an overview and analysis of the influence of the homeostatic and hedonic system

Abstract

Purpose Explore the different mechanisms that support the effect of short sleep duration on food intake. Methods This is a narrative review made with articles from the PubMed/MEDLINE database using the following MeSH terms: “sleep,” “eating,” “appetite regulation,” and “obesity.” Results From this search, 2883 articles were found. Among them, 63 articles were selected based on the title. Then, the abstract was read, and 42 studies were excluded, and, therefore, 21 studies were obtained from the search by PubMed and 25 articles obtained by hand search. Finally, 46 articles comprised this review. Homeostatic, is the main mechanism related to short sleep duration and food intake, which consists of ghrelin increase and leptin decrease. However, some studies, even with these hormonal changes, did not observe an increase in food intake, and other, even if they did not observe any hormonal changes, verify an increase in food intake. This result seems to be attributed to the hedonic system, which controls the reward mechanisms. Conclusion Short sleep duration increases food intake; however, it is unclear which major mechanism determines this phenom enon. It is believed that these systems interact, contributing to food intake increases and worsening food choices, which, over time, seems to contribute to the positive energy balance and obesity.