By Alexandra Thompson Senior Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 14:23 GMT, 19 March 2019 | Updated: 14:23 GMT, 19 March 2019
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We all know not getting enough sleep affects our energy and mood, but research suggests insomnia even causes us to crave sugar.
A study of 51 men by Michigan State University implies getting less shut eye than we are used to makes us pine after the sweet stuff.
Sleep is hugely complex and poorly understood, making it difficult for scientists to uncover how a bad slumber affects our taste buds.
Failure to nod off may activate a region of the brain that gets 'turned on' when we consume sweet food, the researchers claim.
Insomnia may also make us 'stress eat' due to the release of the hormone cortisol.
A study of 51 men suggests a lack of shut eye may trigger sugar cravings (stock)
The research was led by Dr Robin Tucker from the department of food science and human nutrition.
Health officials around the world recommend adults get between seven and nine hours of shut eye a night.
To determine how our slumber affects our sugar cravings, the researchers analysed healthy men who claimed to sleep well.
The men wore electrodes on their scalps while they slept during their normal nighttime routine over two consecutive nights.
These electrodes measured the electrical activity of the men's brains to determine how much shut eye they got, as well as the length of time they spent in deep or light sleep.
The following two days, the participants went to the laboratory where they tasted between 14 and 18 sugary solutions, which they then rated in order of preference.
Results - published in the journal Food Quality and Preference - revealed the less sleep the men got, the more
