The effect of mild to moderate sleep restriction on subjective hunger in healthy young men.
Level 2 - randomized trial
Individual controlled laboratory trial with parallel allocation to sleep duration conditions
PubMed 36493914 · doi:10.1016/j.appet.2022.106412
What was done
Healthy young men (n = 116; mean age 22.8 ± 2.1 years, BMI 22.9 ± 3.7 kg/m²) participated in a 10-day laboratory study. In a between-groups design, participants were allocated to one of five time-in-bed conditions (5 h, 6 h, 7 h, 8 h, or 9 h) for seven consecutive nights while maintained on a eucaloric diet. Subjective ratings of hunger, nausea, prospective hunger, and desire for specific foods were measured via visual analogue scales before five daily meal/snack opportunities across four study days and analyzed using linear mixed models.
What was found
The abstract reports no numeric visual analogue scale scores or effect sizes. There was no main effect of time in bed and no interaction between time in bed and study day for hunger, nausea, prospective hunger, or desire to eat specific foods. Post-hoc analysis showed that the 5-h time-in-bed group had an elevated desire for sweet foods and fruit on the final morning of the protocol. Significant main effects were observed for time of day (hunger peaked before lunch) and study day (overall hunger declined over consecutive days).
Why it matters
While severe sleep deprivation is known to increase hunger, these findings indicate that mild to moderate sleep restriction does not meaningfully alter subjective appetite when energy intake is tightly controlled to eucaloric requirements, although shorter sleep (5 h) may selectively promote sweet cravings.
Limits
The study included only healthy young adult males under strictly controlled, eucaloric laboratory conditions, limiting generalizability to females, older adults, individuals with obesity, or free-living conditions where ad libitum food intake occurs. The abstract does not report exact numerical ratings, confidence intervals, or statistical test values.
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