Not getting enough sleep may raise your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that people who slept fewer than six hours increased their chances of developing the disease. Notably, having what the researchers considered a healthy diet didn’t negate that risk.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that adequate sleep is important in preventing type 2 diabetes.1
Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that develops when your body either doesn’t make enough of the hormone insulin or doesn’t use it properly. Insulin helps blood sugar move into the body’s cells for energy. Deficiencies in insulin can cause blood sugar to rise, over time leading to type 2 diabetes.
“Previous research, encompassing both cohort studies like ours and experimental studies, has demonstrated that repeated short sleep duration is associated with an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes,” study author Diana Aline Nôga, PhD, a neuroscientist at Uppsala University in Sweden, told Health.
What her study makes clear, she added, is that the link between sleep deprivation and type 2 diabetes persists even among people who eat healthily.
The importance of sleep hasn’t always received attention, but that’s changing as a result of research like this new study, said Jing Wang, MD, clinical director of the Mount Sinai Integrative Sleep Center and associate professor of medicine specializing in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“I think it’s something that, in recent years, has really risen to greater public and scientific awareness,” she told Health.
SOURCE: HEALTH.COM
