Not getting enough sleep increases the risk of developing diabetes.

Even if you are healthy, sleeping too much or too little can have adverse effects on your health.

The link between sleep and diabetes

Study author Femke Rutters of the Vrije Amsterdam University Medical Center said: “Many previous studies have linked sleep problems to diabetes, but the reasons behind this link are not yet fully understood.”

Current research offers one explanation: insulin resistance (insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas that regulates blood glucose levels; a lack of insulin causes a form of diabetes).

Researchers examined data on sleep patterns and insulin resistance for 788 men and women without diabetes. Those with obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol were excluded from the analysis.

To measure sleep, researchers asked participants to wear accelerometers for most of their work time. Any time longer than one hour without the motion-detecting devices was counted as sleep.

Reports from this research group indicate that the average person sleeps 7.3 hours a day. Men who sleep more or less than average are more likely to be insulin resistant than those who get just enough sleep. However, the opposite was true for women. Women showed less insulin resistance when they slept more or less than average. To date, the difference between the sexes remains unexplained.

Dr. James Gangwisch, a researcher at Columbia University in New York who was not involved in the study, said: “The results for women contradict results from many previous studies. One drawback of this study is that it did not examine what people ate in the experiment. Getting enough sleep can support insulin sensitivity and increase appetite. At the same time, getting enough sleep can also help provide the energy needed for regular exercise.”

Kristen Knutson, a researcher at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the study, also commented: “One limitation of the study is the way sleep is measured. Treating all the hours people don’t accelerate as sleep time may be inaccurate because it won’t capture when people wake up during the night, or sleep irregularly.”

However, research has shown that irregular sleep patterns can be a contributing factor to diabetes.

Golden tips for your sleep

The message this experiment conveys is that even if you are healthy, sleeping too much or too little can have adverse effects on your health.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most adults typically need about seven to eight hours of sleep per night. In addition to increasing the risk of diabetes, sleep deprivation is also linked to other chronic health problems such as obesity, depression, and cardiovascular disease.

Getting enough sleep is a simple way to protect your health. So, no matter how busy or free you are, always make time for sleep.

According to Young Knowledge