The Sleep-Obesity Connection

Sleep is easily the most mysterious and least well understood of any of our vital bodily functions. With all of today's vast medical knowledge it's still a fact that scientists are not even exactly sure why we need to sleep, though it's clear that we can't survive very long without it.

As specialists in weight loss surgery in Los Angeles, we're obviously especially concerned with how, on the one  hand, obesity impacts sleep and, on the other hand, how sleep, or the lack of it, may impact obesity. Specifically, obesity is pretty directly associated in many patients with the condition known as sleep apnea. This is a condition in which sleep is constantly interrupted, resulting in fatigue, depressions and numerous other health risks, some of them quite serious.

Even more interesting, however, are a number of studies showing how poor sleep is related to excessive eating, which is obviously pretty closely related to obesity. Indeed, according to one study we came across from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the hunger hormone ghrelin appears to increase as quality sleep decreases. That's especially interesting to us at Dr. Feiz & Associates because we've been at the forefront of spreading the world about how sleeve gastrectomies appears to greatly reduce the production of ghrelin, which is produced in an area of the stomach that is removed during this type of bariatric surgery.

So, if severe obesity is making you lose sleep...or if losing sleep is making your severe obesity worse...there's a lot that we can do. Give us a call.