Prof. Josiane Broussard | "Pathways linking insufficient sleep to obesity and diabetes risk"

Guest Lecture

  • Date: Sep 21, 2017
  • Time: 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Prof. Josiane Broussard
  • Department of Integrative Physiology University of Colorado Boulder, CO
  • Location: MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
  • Room: Wilhelm Wundt Room (A400)
  • Host: Department of Neurology
Rates of obesity in the United States have doubled over the last 30 years, as has the percentage of persons in the U.S. with diagnosed Type 2 diabetes (T2D), and both conditions are rapidly increasing worldwide. Although changes in diet and energy expenditure have played an important role, insufficient sleep and circadian misalignment have been identified as novel risk factors for the development of such metabolic diseases and are often unavoidable in modern, 24-hour society.

Humans spend up to one third of their lives asleep and yet the function of sleep remains a topic of intense debate. While evidence supports a role for sleep in learning, memory and other central nervous system functions, well-controlled laboratory studies have demonstrated that sleep restriction has adverse effects on metabolism, both at the whole body, as well as molecular level. Over the last century, the average sleep duration in American adults has decreased by nearly 2 hours per night. Insufficient sleep impairs whole body and molecular insulin sensitivity, increases hunger and appetite, and leads to alterations in post-prandial ghrelin concentrations, yet mechanisms by which these changes occur are relatively unknown.

My talk will present findings from experimental sleep restriction studies that have contributed to the intersecting fields of sleep and metabolism and present areas for future mechanistic investigations.

Poster
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