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Last updated on Sep 05, 2024.
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There is some evidence that there is a link between Wegovy and sleep. Wegovy could improve sleep quality as it affects your hormones, appetite, and blood sugar levels.
However, improving sleep isn’t the main goal of taking Wegovy. If you’re having trouble sleeping, it’s important to speak to a healthcare professional to address any underlying health issues or personal circumstances that may be affecting your sleep.
Why you might sleep better with Wegovy
Wegovy is a medication you inject once a week to help with weight loss, alongside eating a balanced diet and engaging in regular physical activity. The active ingredient in Wegovy, semaglutide, is a GLP-1 receptor agonist, which mimics the effects of the natural GLP-1 hormone in your body. This helps reduce appetite by slowing the emptying of your stomach, helping you eat less and reach your weight loss goals.
While Wegovy isn’t designed specifically to help with sleep, the weight loss associated with it might improve your sleep quality.
Sleep hormone regulation might improve
We say “might” because the research is still ongoing, and the relationship between GLP-1 and two hormones linked to sleep, ghrelin and leptin, is complex.
Semaglutide has been shown to increase metabolism, improve sensitivity to leptin, and reduce ghrelin levels.
Leptin signals to your brain that you’ve had enough to eat, making you feel satisfied. Leptin is also thought to help preserve deep sleep by interfering with orexin neurons, which play a role in regulating sleep and wakefulness.
Ghrelin, on the other hand, is known to stimulate appetite when levels rise, making you feel hungry. Scientific data shows a clear interaction between ghrelin and GLP-1, with people who were given GLP-1 experiencing a smaller post-meal increase in ghrelin levels. However, keeping your ghrelin levels low throughout the day could cause them to rise at night. Some evidence suggests that increased nocturnal ghrelin levels can improve non-REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. While REM sleep was once thought to be the most important phase of sleep for memory and learning, newer research suggests non-REM sleep may be even more crucial for these functions – and it’s also the most restful.
That said, there’s no guarantee that Wegovy will increase your ghrelin levels at night since it reduces them during the day. Finding the right balance of ghrelin, leptin, and GLP-1 can be tricky. For example, low ghrelin levels have been linked to insomnia, suggesting that these hormones can affect people differently.
In summary, it’s likely that more evidence is needed to fully understand how these hormones can contribute to both weight loss and better sleep quality.
Reduced appetite
Eating too close to bedtime is associated with disrupted sleep. A study suggests that people who ate within three hours of going to bed were more likely to wake up in the night (27.8% of participants) than those who ate more than three hours before bedtime (19.2%).
So avoiding eating within three hours of bedtime can help you remain asleep through the night and improve the quality of your sleep. Using Wegovy should help you feel more satisfied and can help you to avoid eating too close to bedtime.
Weight loss
There’s also plenty of evidence that losing weight can improve sleep quality – and that getting a good night’s sleep can play a role in weight loss.
A study split 77 overweight volunteers, many of which reported sleep problems like sleep apnea, fatigue, and restless or interrupted sleep, into two groups. One group went on a weight loss diet with supervised physical activity, and the other group just went on the diet. After six months, participants in both groups lost an average of 15lbs, reduced their belly fat by 15%, and improved sleep quality – with a reduction in belly fat being the best indicator of improved sleep. Another study investigating sleep in overweight and obese people found that there was an association between being overweight and obese and reduced amounts of sleep.
Other studies highlight that better sleep health is associated with improved weight loss. One study, involving 125 overweight or obese adults who took part in a 12-month weight loss intervention, displays this relationship. It concluded that better sleep health is associated with increased weight and fat loss – but recognised further studies are needed to explore whether there are other factors in play.
Sleep apnea
One way losing weight with Wegovy might help you sleep better is by improving obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a disorder that causes your breathing to stop and start while you’re asleep. Symptoms include snoring loudly, and feeling tired the day after you’ve had a full night’s sleep. There are different kinds of sleep apnea that have different causes, with the main types being:
- Obstructive sleep apnea (or OSA), where your throat muscles block airflow in and out of your lungs.
- Central sleep apnea (CSA), where the part of the brain that controls breathing doesn’t send the proper signals to your breathing muscles while you’re asleep.
- Treatment-emergent (or complex) sleep apnea, which develops when someone is receiving treatment for OSA and it converts into CSA.
Weight loss won’t help you with central or complex sleep apnea, as these involve messages from the brain not being sent properly. But there is evidence that losing weight can relieve symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea.
A study in which 89 individuals with OSA were assigned an 8-week weight loss and lifestyle intervention reported that, after the 8 week program was over, 45% of participants no longer needed CPAP therapy to help them sleep. Six months after the intervention, 62% of participants didn’t need to use CPAP therapy anymore – suggesting losing weight could continue to have positive effects on your sleep in the longer term.
There’s evidence that GLP-1 receptor agonists like Wegovy might help improve OSA by reducing apnea-hypopnea index. Also known as AHI, this is a combination of the average amount of apneas and sleep apneas per hour of sleep. Zepbound is one of these GLP-1 agonists. It’s recently been approved by the FDA for the treatment of OSA in people with overweight or obesity, due to new evidence showing its efficacy.
Blood sugar levels can improve
GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide were originally developed as type 2 diabetes medications, and they can help manage your blood sugar levels as well as your weight. By mimicking natural GLP-1 hormones (which tell your body to release insulin after eating) they help you make more insulin to keep your blood sugar levels in check.
Research suggests a link between poor control of blood sugars in people with type-2 diabetes and worse sleep quality, as it decreases the amount of time you spend asleep before the first REM phase. So using Wegovy to help manage your blood sugar levels can lead to better sleeping patterns – which can also benefit your weight loss journey.
Can taking Wegovy worsen your sleeping patterns?
While there is evidence that losing weight with Wegovy can help improve the quality of your sleep – there’s some evidence to the contrary, too. One study reported a significant number of participants with fatigue as a side effect of Wegovy. Another common side effect of Wegovy is nausea, which could also disrupt your sleeping patterns.
The good news is that nausea from Wegovy often passes quickly as your body gets used to the treatment. And as you lose weight with Wegovy, it should help improve the quality of your sleep in different ways – which can help address any fatigue you experience as a side effect.
Is Wegovy the right way to improve your sleep?
Wegovy isn’t a treatment that’s designed to improve your sleep – but it could help you sleep better as an added benefit to losing weight. If a lack of sleep is affecting your health, you should speak to a doctor to try and identify any underlying causes. They’ll be able to recommend treatment that can address these causes, and help improve your sleep. But if excess weight is the main cause of your sleeping problems, there’s a chance taking Wegovy could both help you lose weight, and sleep better as a result.
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Disclaimer: The information provided on this page is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you have any questions or concerns about your health, please talk to a doctor.
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