 IÕve just returned from the Association of Professional Sleep Societies Meeting in Salt Lake City. Failing to cast a sleepy pall over that clean, efficient city, researchers enthusiastically brought together new findings on the deep interconnections between weight, sleep, genes, activity, mortality and the design of American towns. It appears that Food-Activity-Rest is deeply embedded in human and animal biology. Some of the interesting findings were:
- Basic clock genes help control not just internal timing but sleep, weight and obesity. Mutations of the gene ÒclockÓ, which helps create 24-hour rhythms in most animals, lead to obesity, sluggishness and highly disrupted, poor sleep.
- Obese people sleep significantly less than others.
- Obesity causes whole body inflammation. This increased inflammation may help explain how obesity kills via heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, AlzheimerÕs and a host of other illnesses.
- Disrupt the circadian system, our 24-hour clocks, and illnesses increase or begin throughout the body.
- In 1990, not one state in the Union had more than 14% of its inhabitants considered obese. By 2004, only six states had an obesity prevalence less than 19%; several were over 25%. The South led the nation in weightiness.
- The circadian system appears to work in every last cell of the body. That means rest, food, energy and time are intimately connected at the most fundamental cellular levels.
- Depressed children and adults are at much greater risk for obesity. Obesity and depression have in common changes in the same neurotransmitters and hormones; glucose and lipid metabolism shifts; and increased rates of inflammation.
Some of the more provocative data presented engaged the social arenas of sleep, rest and food. It now appears that:
- Twenty percent of US children watch television more than six hours a day. The more television they watch, the bigger they get.
- The largest social factors increasing sleep loss of American adults are work and travel time. Urban sprawl means increased time spent in cars. Increased travel times results in less sleep and a heavier population.
- Ten percent of American trips involve non-motorized travel. The comparable figure in Europe is 50%.
- In communities perceived as unsafe, the rate of obesity in seven years old children is more than four times that of ÒsafeÓ communities.
- Nurses now prefer to work 12-hour shifts where they generally work more than 13 hours due to paperwork and other duties. Though the long shifts are popular, the rate of medical error goes up three times compared with shorter shifts. Older nurses are leaving the profession in droves, unable to keep up with work demands.
- Poor sleep precedes stress, not the other way around. In large Swedish studies, increased days of work stress follow poor nights of sleep; increased stress at work is not quickly followed by worse sleep.
- Sweden is undergoing an epidemic of employee burnout and markedly increased sick days. The largest causative factors appear to be disturbed sleep and work stress.
- In states like Michigan over the last 30 years, the amount of developed land increased 10 times faster than the population.
As a society, we have become addicted to oil and our cars. Our communities have become far less walkable. We have spread out our residences so much that people must use a car to get around. The more we travel, the sleepier we become. The more sleep we lose, the fatter we get. All the while we become ever more dependent on foreign oil. Tens of thousands die and hundreds of billions are spent in conflicts over oil supplies and political control.
The basis of many of our health and social problems lie in the interaction of our genes, schools, towns, our habits. Some answers lie in new approaches to how we use our human design.
Human beings are built to move. We are built to eat foods we evolved with, particularly plant stuffs like vegetables, cereals, fruits, and nuts and game-like fish. We are built to interact regularly and socially. We live longest when the pattern of our lives are regular and stable. Many of the reasons for these facts are genetic. Their origins lies in biological facts that long predate our appearance as a separate species.
One answer to our biological and social problems is to literally go FAR Ñ to use Food, Activity and Rest together. ItÕs as simple as eating, moving and resting, one after the other throughout the day. FAR uses physical activity to overcome mental fatigue. Balancing physical and mental efforts helps reconnect our inner environment with the world outside.
 Our bodies are constantly renewing, constantly rebuilding. We can change how we look and we feel by intelligently using FAR. Rest allows for rebuilding and renewal; activity resets and resculpts our bodies and brains; food provides the proper fuel. The whole process can be as simple as eat, move, rest.
The implications of FAR range from our genes to urban planning and from food to clothing to the design of our homes. The guiding principle is simple. The results may improve our personal health and the health of our planet. As they say in Brooklyn, whatÕs not to like?
Dr. Matthew Edlund, M.D., M.O.H., director of The Center for Circadian Medicine,
is an expert on applied public health, sleep medicine and psychiatry. A former
professor at Brown and University of Texas medical schools, he can be reached
via email to DocME@DoctorEdlund.com. And CLICK HERE to subscribe to our new Fitcast, via the iTunes Store. |
