It’s well known that sleep has a profound effect on health. It affects the immune system, heart health, and energy levels and lack of it has been linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Now, research presented at the ongoing ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in Chicago highlights how sleep duration quality affects risk for diabetes.
According to the research paper, less than six hours or more than 10 hours of sleep, and poor quality of sleep are associated with a greater risk for diabetes.
“Most previous studies did not examine changes in various glycometabolic parameters, like over 14 years. The pattern of changes in various glycemic parameters may provide clues to the mechanism underlying the association between sleep duration and incident diabetes mellitus,” study author Wonjin Kim said in the press statement.
The researchers collected data from 8,816 of 10,030 healthy participants of the ongoing Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES)-Ansung and Ansan Cohort Study. Diabetes cases and sleep duration and quality were identified from the sample. They observed a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and incident diabetes, with the greatest risk when sleep duration was 10 hours or more every day, according to the statement.
“Even if sleep duration is less than 10 hours, the likelihood of developing diabetes is greater when the quality of sleep decreases,” Kim explained.
Previous studies have found that about seven hours is the optimal sleep duration associated with the lowest risk of type 2 diabetes. Earlier this month, another study published in Diabetes Metabolism Research and Reviews found that poor sleep quality and abnormal sleep duration mediate a delayed peak or suppress levels of melatonin secretion, which triggers exacerbate insulin resistance, contributing to the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes.
Hence, the research emphasises regulating sleep and ensuring one gets quality sleep for about seven hours to prevent health issues ranging from type 2 diabetes to memory, as lack of sleep has been linked to memory retention and recall (as found by a 2014 study published in Journal of American Geriatrics Society)
