Effect of sleep restriction, with or without prior evening exercise, on morning postprandial lipemia

Sleep restriction (SR) impairs postprandial glycemia following a high-glucose challenge and exercise improves it, but their combined impact on postprandial lipemia in response to a high-fat challenge remains unknown. This project investigated whether one night of SR impairs morning postprandial lipemia and if prior evening exercise influences the response. We hypothesized SR would induce an exaggerated postprandial lipemic response to a high-fat morning challenge and that prior evening exercise would fully or partially ameliorate these impairments. In 10 sedentary individuals with overweight or obesity (females: 4, age: 28.1 ± 3.8 years, body mass index: 30.4 ± 2.2 kg/m²), we compared the effects of one night of SR (4 h) to normal sleep (8 h), with and without prior moderate-intensity aerobic exercise (45 min, 65% VO₂max), on postprandial lipemia and satiety following a standardized high-fat morning challenge (4 h). Spline regression was used to compare differences in the time course of the blood-based outcomes between exercise and sleep conditions. No significant differences were observed in fasting or 2 h concentrations of glucose, insulin, non-esterified fatty acids, or triglyceride, areas under the curves, indexes of metabolism, or satiety between conditions. However, exercise had an interaction between the spline term and exercise and sleep conditions (p < 0.001) for glucose, insulin, non-esterified fatty acids, and triglycerides during the high-fat challenge. The findings indicate that one night of SR has minimal effects on morning postprandial lipemia, irrespective of previous aerobic exercise. Notably, exercise reduced triglyceride concentrations in the latter half of the testing period, although this effect was abolished during SR conditions. Clinical trial #: NCT05713370.