Insufficient sleep may attenuate weight loss, but the role of sleep in weight loss maintenance is unknown. Since weight regain after weight loss – the so-called yo-yo effect – remains a major obstacle in obesity treatment, it was investigated whether insufficient sleep predicts weight regain during weight loss maintenance.
195 adults with obesity completed an 8-week low-calorie diet and were randomly assigned to 1-year weight loss maintenance with or without exercise and liraglutide 3.0 mg/day or placebo, in a recent study published in Sleep, the benchmark international journal for sleep and circadian science. Sleep duration and quality were measured before and after the low-calorie diet and during weight maintenance using wrist-worn accelerometers.
After a diet-induced 13.1 kg weight loss, participants with short sleep duration at randomization regained 5.3 kg body weight and had less reduction in body fat percentage compared with participants with normal sleep duration during the 1-year weight maintenance phase. Participants with poor sleep quality before the weight loss regained 3.5 kg body weight compared with good quality sleepers. During the weight maintenance phase, participants undergoing liraglutide treatment displayed increased sleep duration compared with placebo after 26 weeks but not after 1 year. Participants undergoing exercise treatment preserved the sleep quality improvements attained from the initial weight loss. To sum it up, short sleep duration or poor sleep quality was associated with weight regain after weight loss in adults with obesity.