Sleep

Pure Rest – Restore your natural sleep cycles without sleeping pills…

Melatonin Deficiency and Weight Gain

Is a lack of the hormone melatonin making you tired and fat? Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in our brain. Melatonin is the hormone that regulates our sleep cycles. Normally, melatonin levels rise in the late evening making us sleepy, stay high for most of the night so that we continue to sleep, and then decline in the early morning hours.

Unfortunately as we age our bodies make less and less of this hormone. (Ever noticed how senior citizens have such a hard time sleeping through the night?) By middle age most of us have a melatonin deficiency, and some seniors produce no melatonin at all. It also may partially explain why we tend to gain weight as we age.

Studies have shown that the decline in melatonin that occurs with aging causes an in crease in body fat – particularly in belly fat. In one such study* middle-aged rats that were given a daily dose of melatonin experienced a decrease in body weight and belly fat and a decline in plasma leptin and insulin levels – without any change in food consumption! When the melatonin was replaced with a placebo, the rats promptly regained the weight they had lost – again without any change in the amount of food they ate.

* Endocrinology Vol. 141, No. 2 487-497, The Endocrine Society

How It Works

It is not known exactly how melatonin causes weight loss, but one way undoubtedly is by improving sleep. Because melatonin is the hormone that keeps us asleep at night, people who are deficient sleep poorly.

Poor quality sleep, in turn, is known to affect the secretion of several other hormones – including growth hormone, leptin, cortisol and ghrelin – in a manner that causes us to gain weight and makes losing weight very difficult.

The Science Behind Pure Rest™ (English)

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