Dan Pardi
Stanford University, University of Leiden
Dan Pardi is a researcher in sleep neurobiology who has pursued doctoral research at Stanford University and the University of Leiden. He is also the co-founder of Dan's Plan, an online wellness and technology company. His work focuses on the determinants of sleep quality and the physiological and neurological consequences of sleep loss.
35 claims checked on air: 6 context 2 contradicted 2 overstated 20 supported 5 unverified 4 flagged
What they said on air - unverified
81 out of 89 epidemiological or longitudinal studies found a positive association between sleep loss and weight gain.
"I had a slide in a presentation that was 81 out of 89 epidemiological or longitudinal studies that looked for an association between sleep loss and weight gain had a positive finding." (said at 0:17:23)
No published record matching the claim that 81 out of 89 epidemiological or longitudinal studies found a positive association between sleep loss and weight gain was located; this does not prove the claim false.
A study conducted in a base station under artificial light found that living under normal room light worsened mood, delayed bedtimes, disrupted rhythms, and impaired reaction time on a psychomotor vigilance test, whereas blue-enriched white light restored reaction time and mood.
"study the effects of artificial light only on human physiology. And what they found is they had people in this base station that were living under normal room light, and what they found is that their mood was altered, they wanted to go to bed a little bit later every night, they didn't have a good anchored rhythm, and their their reaction time on something called a psychomotor vigilance test, which is a measurement of alertness, which is the way that you can think of that about that is it's it's how energized the brain feels, um basically they were performing very poorly. And then when they put in blue-enriched white light, when they replaced normal light with blue-enriched white light, everything improved. Their reaction time was better, their mood was better." (said at 0:30:11)
No published record matching the specific base station study described—evaluating the impact of standard room lighting versus blue-enriched white light on psychomotor vigilance test reaction times, sleep timing, circadian rhythms, and mood in an isolated base station—was located; this does not prove the claim false.
Getting thirty minutes of bright sunlight during the day anchors circadian rhythms and reduces circadian susceptibility to artificial light at night.
"you want to get about a half an hour of bright sunlight during the day because that's gonna that strong light signal is going to help anchor your rhythm... because if you don't get enough adequate light during the day, then your susceptibility to light at night, artificial light at night shifting your rhythms is much greater." (said at 0:49:34)
No published record matching the claim that thirty minutes of daytime bright sunlight anchors circadian rhythms and reduces susceptibility to light-at-night phase shifts was located; this does not prove the claim false.
A research study found that losing just one or two hours of sleep for a single night caused significant impairments in attention, alertness, and objective reaction time.
"the research study that I just finished was looking at a lot of cognitive performance after sleep loss, but it was we called ecologically relevant. So instead of one day with no sleep at all, it was just how did people perform on their cognitive performance tests if they just got one or two less hours for one night. And what we found is that there was a significant impairment in attention, so either somebody felt—or alertness, excuse me. Somebody felt either subjectively sleepy, or they had an objective sleepiness or objective reaction time deficit" (said at 0:59:45)
No published record matching the specific study described—in which a single night of losing one to two hours of sleep caused significant impairments in attention, alertness, and objective reaction time—was located; this does not prove the claim false.
Feelings of sleepiness or slower reaction times caused by sleep loss make people significantly more likely to choose foods that they rate as low in healthfulness.
"both of those, the feeling of sleepiness or a slower reaction time, changed the way that people ate. And so they were much more likely to choose foods that they rated as low health." (said at 1:00:24)
No published record matching the claim that feelings of sleepiness or slower reaction times caused by sleep loss make people significantly more likely to choose foods they rated as low in healthfulness was located; this does not prove the claim false.
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