Poor sleep duration and quality linked to increased diabetes risk, study finds

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Research presented at ENDO 2023, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, suggests that sleeping fewer than six hours or more than ten hours, as well as experiencing poor quality sleep, are all associated with a heightened risk of developing diabetes.

The impact of sleep quantity and quality on the risk of developing diabetes or obesity has been studied before, but this research aimed to explore the long-term effects.

“Most previous studies did not examine changes in various parameters over a period of 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,” explained Wonjin Kim, M.D., Ph.D., of CHA Gangnam Medical Center and associate professor at CHA University School of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea.

Kim and colleagues collected data from 8,816 healthy participants of the ongoing Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES)-Ansung and Ansan Cohort Study.

Sleep duration was divided into four categories: less than 6, 6-7, 8-9, or more than 9 hours per day. Sleep quality was also measured among those who slept less than ten hours per day.

During the 14-year follow-up period, 18% (or 1,630 out of 8,816) of the participants were diagnosed with diabetes.

The researchers observed a U-shaped relationship between sleep duration and incident diabetes, with the greatest risk evident when sleep duration exceeded ten hours per day.

This group also displayed decreased insulin glycogenic index, a marker of insulin secretory function.

The risk for incident diabetes increased among study participants who slept less than ten hours per day when their Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) score was over ten.

“Even if sleep duration is less than ten hours, the likelihood of developing diabetes is greater when the quality of sleep decreases,” Kim concluded.

The findings highlight the critical role of adequate sleep duration and quality in diabetes risk and suggest the potential need for sleep management interventions in diabetes prevention strategies.

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