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Tiredness may lead to snacking
越困越想吃零食是怎么回事？
Staying up late doing homework is always tiring. And perhaps when we become tired, we feel the need to eat unhealthy snack food. Recently scientists have been investigating tiredness and snack food.
熬夜做作業總是讓人精疲力盡。每當疲憊時，我們或許就想吃些不健康的零食。科學家們最近就調查了疲勞和零食之間的關系。
According to a study in the Journal of Neuroscience, people are more likely to crave snacks when they don't get enough sleep.
刊登于《神經科學期刊》上的一項研究表明，人們在睡眠不足時更想吃零食。
For the study, researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany gave the same dinner to 32 healthy men aged between 19 and 33. Half of the men were then sent home to bed, and the other half were kept awake in the laboratory all night.
為進行該項研究，來自德國科隆大學的研究者們為32名年齡在19-33歲不等的健康男子提供了同樣的晚餐。其中，一半的人飯后回家休息，而另一半人則在實驗室里徹夜未眠。
The next morning, the participants were asked to consider how much they would be willing to pay for snack food items shown to them in pictures.
第二天一早，研究人員向實驗參與者們展示了一些零食的圖片，并問他們愿意花多少錢來購買這些零食。
According to the researchers, all were similarly hungry in the morning, and had similar levels of most hormones and blood sugar.
研究人員認為，所有人當天早上的饑餓程度以及大多數激素和血糖的水平都是相似的。
However, brain scans showed that when the sleep-deprived participants looked at the pictures of junk food, they released more of the "hunger hormone". This is the hormone responsible for increasing the appetite, and making us consume more.
然而，根據腦部掃描檢查顯示，睡眠不足的參與者們在看到垃圾食品的圖片時，會產生更多“饑餓激素”。這種激素能夠增加食欲，讓我們吃得更多。
Asked about how much they would pay for snacks, "participants with sleep deprivation were more willing to overspend on food items than those with a good night's sleep," researchers told Science Daily.
當被問及愿意花多少錢買零食時，“和好好睡了一覺的參與者相比，睡眠不足的參與者更愿意花更多的錢買零食，”研究人員們在接受《每日科學》網站采訪時如此表示。
Researchers also observed that among the people who hadn't slept, there was greater activity in the part of the brain where food rewards are processed.
研究者們還觀察到，在缺乏睡眠的人群當中，他們大腦處理食物獎勵的部分會更加活躍。
The scientists think that sleep-deprived people experience changes to the hunger hormone and the brain's reward system that then leads to a stronger desire to eat snacks with high fat and calories.
科學家們認為，睡眠不足會讓人們體內的饑餓激素水平和大腦獎勵機制發生變化，從而讓他們更想吃高脂肪、高熱量的零食。
"This brings us a little closer to understanding the mechanism behind how sleep deprivation changes food valuation," Professor Jan Peters, a co-author of the study from the University of Cologne, told The Independent.
“這讓我們更近一步明白了睡眠不足如何影響人們對待食物的機制，”該研究的合著者之一，來自科隆大學的揚·彼得斯教授在接受《獨立報》采訪時如此表示。
