Manque de sommeil et maladies métaboliques

The dramatic increase of the prevalence of metabolic diseases is a major public health concern. This epidemy is not fully explained by traditional risk factors. Voluntary sleep restriction is increasingly common in modern societies and affects all age ranges. Evidence from epidemiological and experimental studies suggests that sleep loss is a risk factor for obesity, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome. In order to provide new insights into the role of sleep in metabolic health, my PhD project aims at : 1) studying the relationships between sleep and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which may be an important mediator underlying the link between sleep loss and metabolic alterations; 2) evaluating the impact of sleep duration on food intake and neuroendocrine regulation of appetite in obese middle-aged men and women; 3) assessing the beneficial effect of increased time in bed on markers of obesity and its comorbidities in young and obese short sleepers. This work should provide a better understanding of the mechanisms by which sleep duration plays a role in the pathophysiology of metabolic diseases in humans and will explore the putative therapeutic effects of optimizing sleep duration for an improved metabolic health in obese individuals. As sleep duration is a modifiable social behavior, this work may have important implications for novel public health interventions.