Study Says Ketogenic Diet Can Improve Sleep

The ketogenic diet is usually associated with weight loss today, although its origins stem from a medical background–it was created to treat epilepsy. Scientists have continued to research the ketogenic diet in a variety of applications and research indicates that the ketogenic diet may be able to indirectly improve sleeping patterns.¹

Importance of Sleep

It’s no secret that sleep is incredibly important and few people actually get as much sleep as they need.  For example, in a 2012 article by Luyster et al. it was cited that 50-70 million adult Americans have some sort of chronic sleep disorder which contributes to poor health.  Lack of sleep may be due to your job, school, stress from something happening in your life, or obesity.²

Obesity and Sleep

Obese individuals are thought to be awake more at night and sleep less overall.³  More specifically, sleep apnea, a common symptom of obesity, is associated with fatigue, daytime sleepiness, and poor sleep quality.  Research shows that a reduction in body fat improves these adverse effects, thus improving overall sleep patterns and reducing daytime sleepiness.⁴

Obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, is prevalent in about 42-48 percent of obese men and 8-38 percent of obese women.  Current therapy for OSA includes mechanical measures that rely on literally opening up the airways to reduce upper airway resistance while preventing obstruction.  They are effective measures in some cases and not so effective in others.  More importantly, mechanical measures cannot treat negative physical and mental changes associated with obesity.  However, changing your diet to a ketogenic one can.

Ketogenic Diet and Brain Function

The ketogenic diet has been used to treat epilepsy and neurodegenerative disorders but has been very popular for losing weight in general for several decades.  The ketogenic diet involves a reduction of carbohydrate consumption and increase in fatty acid consumption to cause the body to produce ketones.  Ketones become the energy source instead of glucose from carbohydrates, inducing a metabolic state called ketosis.⁵

Ketogenic Diet and Sleep Patterns

The ketogenic diet has been studied in populations with sleep abnormalities; results indicate that the diet can reduce sleepiness and normalize sleeping patterns.  The positive change is associated with a loss of body fat.⁶  In healthy individuals on a low-carb diet who are non-obese and are good sleepers, studies show that a ketogenic diet will also improve the quality of sleep by increasing REM sleep.⁷  This is important because it allows your body to relax by decreasing heart rate and blood pressure while stabilizing breathing.  Low levels of REM sleep is associated with higher occurrences of heart disease.

Obesity negatively impacts one of the basic human survival needs: sleep.  Reducing the amount of body fat a person has decreases their risk of obesity, thus improving their ability to sleep.

Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD

This article has been medically reviewed by Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD.

Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD is an aesthetic medicine specialist whose work focuses on patients who are treated for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other weight-related issues through nutritional analysis, keto diet programs, and supporting medications.

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Amber Bogdanowicz

Amber is a freelance writer and student based in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. She studies molecular biology at Bloomsburg University, writes for a number of companies about all sorts of cool things, and enjoys reading about new scientific developments. When she’s not in the lab culturing cells or writing, she’s normally enjoying her time with her dogs or hanging out with her family.

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