If you don’t sleep enough and well during the night, it is just a matter of time before it will adversely affect your health, even if you’re doing everything else right. All of us know that the health benefits of a good night’s sleep cannot be overestimated. Keeping you happy and your brain sharp, improving your immune system and making your waistline trim, helping your skin look youthful and lowering your risk of heart disease are just some of them. Yet, millions of people don’t get enough night’s eye shut. There are so many reasons for that and your diet is among them.
Published in “The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” in March 2016, recent research led by Wayne Campbell, a Purdue University professor of nutrition science, U.S.A., overweight and obese adults who are losing weight with a high-protein diet are more likely to sleep better.
“We found that while consuming a lower calorie diet with a higher amount of protein, sleep quality improves for middle-age adults. This sleep quality is better compared to those who lost the same amount of weight while consuming a normal amount of protein,” Dr. Campbell says.
One group of 14 overweight participants was asked to follow a high-protein diet based on pork and beef or soy and legume products for three consecutive 4-week periods. Then, in the main group of 44 overweight or obese people, 23 participants followed a diet with a normal intake of protein (0.8g protein/kg of body mass per day), whereas the other 21 followed a high-protein weight loss diet (1.5g protein/kg of body mass per day) for 16 weeks. A diet was designed to meet each participant’s daily energy need and 750 calories in fats and carbohydrates were trimmed per day while maintaining the protein amount based on whether they were in the higher- or normal-protein group. The participants completed a survey to rate the quality of their sleep and a special index to qualify sleep, the global sleep score, was assessed.
The following conclusion was made: those who consumed more protein while losing weight reported an improvement in sleep quality after three and four months of dietary intervention.
Simply put, adding eggs to a salad mixed with a variety of raw vegetables is an effective method to improve nutrient absorption and your night sleep.
It looks like the high-protein weight loss diet, which is rich in melatonin, magnesium, potassium and vitamin D, is one of many simple solutions to address poor sleep.
References:
- https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2016/Q1/losing-weight-with-a-high-protein-diet-can-help-adults-sleep-better.html
- http://www.purdue.edu/aging/faculty/?id=9
- http://canadajournal.net/health/high-protein-weight-loss-diet-aids-sleep-new-study-says-45363-2016/
