Study: Short and Long Sleep Duration Raises Diabetes Risk

January 1, 2008

A study published in the Dec. 1 issues of the journal SLEEP, reports growing evidence that short sleep duration is contributing to the "diabetes epidemic."

Dr. James Gangwisch, of Columbia University in New York, explored the relationship between sleep duration and the diagnosis of diabetes between 1982 and 1992 among 8,992 subjects who participated in the Epidemiologic Follow-Up Studies of the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The subjects' ages ranged from 32 to 86 years.

According to the results, subjects who reported sleeping five or fewer hours and subjects who reported sleeping nine or more hours were significantly more likely to have incident diabetes over the follow-up period than were subjects who reported sleeping seven hours, even after adjusting for variables such as physical activity, depression, alcohol consumption, ethnicity, education, marital status, age, obesity and history of hypertension.

The effect of short sleep duration on diabetes incidence is likely related to the influence of short sleep duration on body weight and hypertension, Gangwisch said. Experimental studies show sleep deprivation decreases glucose tolerance and compromises insulin sensitivity by increasing sympathetic nervous system activity, raising evening cortisol levels and decreasing cerebral glucose utilization. The increased burden on the pancreas from insulin resistance can, over time, compromise ß-cell function and lead to type 2 diabetes, Gangwisch said.

It is unknown how long sleep duration contributes to diabetes, although increased time in bed to compensate for poor sleep quality is one possible explanation, Gangwisch noted.