Sleep Deprivation and Prediabetes Is a Bad Combo

According to research conducted in South Korea, adults with prediabetes who sleep for at most five hours per night are about 70% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes within two years compared to those who sleep for seven hours a night. 

In a previous study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, it was reported that the average American sleeps for a period of about six to seven hours during their work week, and on the remaining weekend days, they sleep for seven to eight hours. The study found that this leads to certain health-related concerns which can be quite dramatic as well as life-threatening. Individuals who suffer from endocrine disorders, such as metabolic disorders, also tend to suffer from disturbances in their sleep. Poor quality of sleep, or sleep restriction, is known to be one of the biggest risk factors for those who suffer from type 2 diabetes as well as obesity. There have been no studies that have investigated the link between the progression of prediabetes and the duration of sleep for an individual. Dr. Kim and his team also studied to see if there was any kind of link between a lack of sleep and the development of prediabetes, then on to true diabetes. In the study, it was found that there is a connection between a short duration of sleep and the development of prediabetes, then the full-on diabetes stage. This study was conducted independent of any kind of lifestyle features as well as any socioeconomic factors. The mean sleep duration is known to be 6.2 hours, and 15% of the participants had a poor quality of sleep. During the follow-up period, which lasted 22 months, there were 664 incidents of diabetes reported in the patients. Adults who suffered from prediabetes and who slept for five hours or less in a night were also 68 to 70 percent more likely to develop diabetes compared to adults who slept for seven hours each night. Those individuals who slept for only six hours a night were known to be 44 percent more likely to be prone to diabetes, and those who slept for eight hours or more at night had only a 23 percent chance or less of progressing to the stage of diabetes. Even after taking into consideration the participants’ age, education, shift work, marital status, smoking status, family history of diabetes, symptoms of depression, and study center, the results remained the same. The results determined that a resistance to insulin, a fatty liver, as well as biomarkers of adiposity intercede the association. Kim and his team mentioned that this led to a better understanding of metabolic dysfunction. The study also mentioned that poor sleep quality was in no way associated with an incident diabetes risk.

Every individual experiences sleep disturbances in various ways. Some people may fight the feeling of sleep, and so they carry out other activities as a distraction. Some of them would experience a disturbance of the circadian rhythm when they tend to ignore their biological clock, such as when performing late shift work. Others can experience sleep difficulties caused due to sleep apnea. The significance of sleep deprivation can go beyond just feeling tired. The beta cell may also fail to compensate for the lost insulin sensitivity, leading to an increase in the risk for diabetes.