Sleep, food cravings and taste

Abstract

Objective

Taste is influenced by factors from our environment, psychology, and from our own physiological state. The objective of the study was to determine whether sleep influences our sense of taste or our cravings for food.

Method

57 healthy panelists, predominantly of college age, submitted to sleep tracking, and subsequently underwent a series of sensory tests, using basic prototypic tastants, as well as real foods. Panelists were also evaluated to quantify food cravings, using both the Leeds Food Preference Questionnaire, and the Control of Eating Questionnaire.

Results

Umami (p = 0.025, F = 5.301) and sour (p = 0.037, F = 4.591) taste were intensified in those rating sleepiness higher, while this group also reported higher implicit wanting for high fat sweet foods (p = 0.011, Wald chi-sq = 14.937). Craving for sweet or savory also associated with a number of measures of taste response to real foods.

Conclusions

Results imply that a lack of sleep may induce cravings for unhealthy foods, and that foods high in umami or sour taste may be experienced differently due to alterations in taste function. Results imply that feeding behavior may be influenced by a lack of sleep, acting at least partially through our sense of taste.

Introduction

Sleep functions as a restorative process of the brain, and is crucial for our health (Hobson, 1995). Behavioral sleep curtailment has become a major health concern for modern society: more people customarily are sacrificing their sleep, often for work or study (Hicks and Pellegrini, 1991, Beccuti and Pannain, 2011, Matricciani et al., 2012). Research has shown that sleep curtailment can increase the chance of developing metabolic disorders including diabetes and obesity (Appelhans et al., 2014, Di Milia et al., 2013). Those with sleep durations less than 6 h, or greater than 8 h have greater diabetes risk (Zizi et al., 2012), possibly due to sleep loss interfering with metabolic or endocrine functions. Sleep is a regulator of neuroendocrine function and glucose metabolism, with lack of sleep leading to negative health consequences such as altered insulin sensitivity, and an imbalance in leptin and ghrelin levels (Spiegel et al., 2004, Beccuti and Pannain, 2011; also see reviews by Van Cauter et al., 2007, Spiegel et al., 2009); factors also linked to taste function (Baquero and Gilbertson, 2011, Dando, 2010, Kawai et al., 2000, Shin et al., 2010). Various studies have investigated links between sleep and either cravings for, or intake of, foods. Increased sleep led to a decrease in both overall appetite and the desire for sweet or salty foods in a study of young adults (Tasali, Chapotot, Wroblewski, & Schoeller, 2014). Conversely, adolescents sleeping less than 8 h a day showed significantly increased consumption of calories from fat and carbohydrates (Weiss et al., 2010). Spiegel et al. (2004) demonstrated an enhanced appetite as well as increases approaching significance in reported desire for sweet, starchy and salty foods in those undergoing sleep restriction vs sleep extension. While the total weight of food consumed by panelists in the experiments of Cain, Filtness, Phillips, and Anderson (2015) was unchanged in a model of disturbed sleep (a simulated night shift), participants ate significantly more high-fat foods after sleep manipulation. When sleep deprived, panelists showed a greater desire for high calorie foods, with no change in wanting of low calorie items (Greer, Goldstein, & Walker, 2013), again highlighting a vulnerability for unhealthy eating behavior with sleep loss.

Sleep can be quantified using measures such as sleep duration, with sleep quality scores, or via instantaneous subjective ratings of sleepiness. Residential sleep studies or tracking devices are most effective in determining sleep duration, while sleep quality is often measured with scoring systems such as the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (Buysse, Reynolds, Monk, Berman, & Kupfer, 1989), with ratings of sleepiness most regularly quantified using the Stanford (Hoddes, Zarcone, Smythe, Phillips, & Dement, 1973) or Karolinska (Åkerstedt & Gillberg, 1990) sleepiness scales. In a large meta-analysis of several thousand participants, self-reported ratings of sleepiness showed the strongest relation to a panelist's cognitive performance, with sleep quality and sleep duration the next most effective respectively (Dewald, Meijer, Oort, Kerkhof, & Bögels, 2010).

This study sought to test whether a relationship exists between sleep patterns and taste function. A number of groups have reported no link between sleep and taste (Hogenkamp et al., 2013, Smith et al., 2016), however the majority of studies performed to date are limited to testing sweet and/or salty taste; the impact of sleep on umami, sourness, and bitterness remain particularly sparsely studied. Although taste response can predict eating habits (Keller et al., 2002, Noel et al., 2017), and taste is the primary driver of food choice (IFIC, 2017), other factors also contribute to the foods we select. Food cravings refer to an individual's urge to seek out and consume specific foods (Tiggemann & Kemps, 2005). Craving a food can also predict overconsumption of that food (Martin, O’Neil, Tollefson, Greenway, & White, 2008). Thus, as a secondary hypothesis, we sought to examine whether cravings for specific food categories would also associate with taste response to such foods.