A new study from Northwestern Medicine shows how a mix of disrupted sleep patterns and unhealthy eating may increase the risk of developing diabetes.
Researchers found that changes to the body’s internal clock, especially in muscles, can affect how the body handles sugar—and when combined with a poor diet, this can lead to serious problems with blood sugar control.
The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and led by Dr. Clara Peek, a professor at Northwestern University.
She and her team wanted to understand how the body’s circadian rhythm—or “internal clock”—affects muscle metabolism and how this might link to diabetes.
Our circadian rhythm is the body’s natural 24-hour cycle, which helps manage sleep, digestion, and metabolism. It works through special proteins called transcription factors, which are found throughout the body, including in muscles.
This internal clock helps coordinate our energy use with the day-night cycle. But when we disrupt that rhythm—through things like shift work, jet lag, or not getting enough sleep—it may affect how our body processes sugar.
In this study, the researchers focused on a gene called BMAL1, which plays a key role in managing the circadian rhythm in muscle cells. They looked at mice that lacked this gene and fed them a high-fat, high-sugar diet.
Interestingly, these mice didn’t gain more weight than normal mice on the same diet, but they did develop glucose intolerance—a condition where the body struggles to process sugar properly, often a warning sign of type 2 diabetes.
Basically, even though these mice weren’t any heavier, their muscles had a much harder time using glucose for energy. The researchers found that the muscles of these mice had problems during glycolysis, which is the first step in breaking down sugar for energy. Without the normal clock function, their cells couldn’t do this efficiently.
The scientists also discovered something new: under the stress of a bad diet, the muscle’s circadian clock normally teams up with another system called the HIF (hypoxia-inducible factor) pathway.
This system helps cells adapt to low oxygen or other stressors, like a poor diet. In healthy mice, BMAL1 and HIF work together to adjust the clock and keep sugar metabolism working well. But when BMAL1 was missing, this connection broke down, and the muscle cells couldn’t adjust—leading to worse blood sugar problems.
To test this, the researchers used genetically modified mice to reactivate the HIF system in muscles that lacked BMAL1. This reversed the glucose intolerance, showing just how important this teamwork between BMAL1 and HIF is for muscle health and sugar control.
This research helps explain why people who work night shifts or have irregular sleep patterns are more likely to develop diabetes—especially if their diets are high in fat and sugar. It also suggests that muscle metabolism, and not just body weight, plays a crucial role in how diabetes develops.
The next step for Dr. Peek’s team is to figure out exactly how obesity disrupts the body’s internal clock and how this leads to problems with insulin and blood sugar. They already know that obesity changes the circadian rhythm, but they want to understand just how much this contributes to the development of diabetes.
In short, this study shows that poor sleep and poor diet can create the perfect storm for developing diabetes—not because you’re gaining more weight, but because your muscle cells can’t manage sugar properly. Protecting your sleep and eating well may help keep your body’s natural clock—and blood sugar—in balance.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about bananas and diabetes, and honey could help control blood sugar.
For more health information, please see recent studies about Vitamin D that may reduce dangerous complications in diabetes and results showing plant-based protein foods may help reverse type 2 diabetes.
The research findings can be found in PNAS.
Copyright © 2025 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
