This is a guest post from Francis McGrath.  Francis started out in Public Health and has moved to include more individual aspects of people’s health as well (sort of the opposite to me - who started out focussing on the individual and then adding the social).  Francis’ blog is Androdynamics - real health for real people.

Don’t you just love research types. You know. The ones who hear about something and get all excited to go and prove it. I just read about a research group in the USA who have finally (Yeah right) proved the link between poor sleep and obesity.
They found out that when you do not get enough sleep, or if your sleep is sufficiently disturbed, that there is a dramatic drop in a number of neurotransmitters that regulate metabolism. Once those neurotransmitters decrease our metabolism started to run ragged like a car motor that is not tuned. As this happens we burn our food/fuel less efficiently. We feel more hunger and overeat.
This less efficient metabolism shows up with as little as 5 hours sleep deficiency in a month. That is roughly 10 minutes a night deprived of sleep is enough to cause weight issues.
So my suggestion is, if your are having any sleep issues at all, get and see a sleep therapist or an alternative health practitioner. I hesitate to suggest a doctor/GP but if you do and the first thing they do is suggest a sleeping tablet, I would leave as quickly as politeness would allow. Sleeping tablets only mask symptoms, they do not treat the underlying cause.