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Poor sleeping habits linked to lower insulin levels

10.17.2012

News sources have reported on a study recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine indicating that long periods of sleep deprivation reduce fat cells' ability to process insulin. This could make sleepy individuals more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and obesity. If it's allowed to progress into hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia - excessively high or low levels of blood sugar - type 2 diabetes could result in needing immediate care and emergency medicine.

ABC News notes that consistently getting too little sleep also increases risk of stroke, which could be fatal unless immediately and properly treated by emergency department physicians.

"This is significant because sleeping four to five hours a night during the workweek is not uncommon," said the primary author Matthew Brady, an assistant professor of medicine from the University of Chicago Medicine. "People think they can function cognitively on little sleep, but our study proves they are not tolerating the metabolic consequences."

The scientists looked at study participants between the ages of 18 and 30 who underwent four sessions of four consecutive nights of sleep. For the first session, they slept 8.5 hours a night, then slept 4.5 hours per night for the second portion of the research. Following the second session, blood tests showed that body insulin responses dropped an average of 16 percent while the sensitivity to insulin in fat cells dropped by an average of 30 percent.

The researchers say that this drop reflects what it would look like if fat cells in healthy people suddenly started responding to insulin the same way they would in a diabetic or obese person.

Tips for getting healthier night's sleep
In light of recent findings linking well-rounded sleep habits to a lesser of chances of developing diabetes, CBS released six bits of advice for its readers to improve their sleep quality. First, the news source encouraged people to avoid too much unwinding time in the evenings, noting that relaxing from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. is probably unnecessary. Likewise, late night TV is listed as detrimental to getting a full eight hours of rest, as is getting sidetracked from sleep by checking e-mail around 10 p.m. Exercise helps tucker a person out, as does having a set bedtime, preferably eight hours before wake-up time.

Categories: Health and Wellness