Upend tradition! PLOS Bio reveals that it's not staying up late that makes you fat, it's that obesity makes you sleepless.

For a long time, there has been a consensus that staying up late not only makes people bald, but also leads to obesity.a study published last year by the Journal of neuroscience pointed out that lack of sleep promotes people's demand for junk food and increases the risk of overeating and obesity.however, a recent study published in PLoS Biology has overturned the relationship between obesity and sleep.researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that it may not be lack of sleep that leads to obesity, but obesity affects sleep quality.the report's lead author, Dr. David raizen of the University of Pennsylvania School of Neurology, said: "it is generally believed that sleep is associated with the brain or nerve cells.but our research shows that there are complex interactions between the brain and other parts of the body that affect sleep regulation."generally speaking, lack of sleep makes people yearn for high sugar and high-fat food more than usual, while people with long-term sleep deprivation are more likely to become obese and develop diabetes; at the same time, hunger can affect the sleep of humans, rats and fruit flies.these information indicate that sleep is regulated by nutrients to a certain extent.however, the mechanism of sleep and eating cooperation is still unclear.in order to understand how sleep status is coordinated with metabolism, the researchers carried out genetic modification on Caenorhabditis elegans.this is a model organism widely used in biology and medicine. It has a salt induced kinase (Siks) homolog known as "kin-29", which is a conservative regulator of sleep and metabolism.the researchers "turned off" the sleep control neurons in the nematode.that is to say, the nematodes have lost their sleep function, but can still eat, breathe and reproduce.the researchers compared the levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in normal and modified nematodes, the energy source of all living organisms.the results showed that ATP levels in sleep deprived nematodes were significantly reduced, but they still stored too much fat, which was similar to human obesity.thus, the researchers hypothesized that the release of stored fat is a mechanism that promotes sleep, and that the reason why kin-29 knockout nematodes can't sleep is that they can't release fat.to test this hypothesis, the researchers continued to modify the nematode to make the kin-29 mutant express a fat consuming enzyme, and the nematode could sleep safely.schematic of the model, Dr. raizen said, "there may be signaling problems between fat storage and brain cells that control sleep."this may be the reason why obese patients have sleep problems.at the end of the article, the researchers suggest that the relationship between insufficient sleep and increased fat reserves in humans should be interpreted as chronic obesity promotes sleep deprivation, which will help people treat common sleep disorders.end reference: [1] a salt induced kinase is required for the metallic regulation of sleep. [2] researchers identify link between oxygen and sleep loss in worms. [3] sleep development selectively upregulations an amygdala – HYPTHALAMIC circuit involved in food reward