Poor sleep is not just about feeling tired the next day. It can also affect your long-term health.
A new study published in the journal Cureus suggests that certain leg movements during sleep might be linked to a higher risk of developing diabetes.
These leg movements, known as sleep-related leg movements (SRLMs), include twitching, jerking, or sudden leg kicks that happen while a person is asleep.
Two common types of SRLMs are periodic limb movements of sleep (PLMS), which are repeated leg movements, and restless legs syndrome, which causes a strong urge to move due to uncomfortable feelings in the legs.
People usually notice these movements themselves or learn about them from a sleep partner, since they are not always measured during a sleep study.
Dr. Andrey Zinchuk, a sleep medicine expert at Yale School of Medicine, led the study.
He explained that SRLMs are fairly common and may affect the nervous system by increasing heart rate, raising blood pressure, and activating the body’s stress system, called the sympathetic nervous system.
Because diabetes and high blood pressure are connected to this system, the researchers wanted to find out if these nighttime leg movements might be linked to diabetes.
The researchers studied data from over 9,000 adults in a public health database to see how often people with SRLMs also had diabetes.
They looked at other factors too, like age, body weight, sleep apnea, and high blood pressure, to make sure these didn’t explain the results.
The findings were surprising. People who said they had leg movements during sleep were 72% more likely to also have diabetes compared to people who didn’t report these movements. The researchers also looked at whether shorter sleep or inflammation in the body explained this link, but these only played a small role.
Dr. Zinchuk says that this study is just a starting point and more research is needed. Future studies should use sleep tests to measure leg movements more accurately and explore how exactly they might affect the body. Even though this study doesn’t prove that SRLMs cause diabetes, it opens the door for more research.
This work is important because it could help identify new warning signs or risk factors for diseases like diabetes. Leg movements during sleep have often been thought of as harmless, but this research shows they might be worth paying closer attention to.
According to Dr. Zinchuk, better understanding of sleep-related issues like SRLMs could lead to new ways of preventing or managing common chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies about How to choosing the right fruits for type 2 diabetes and findings of New higher dose diabetes drug promises better blood sugar control and weight loss.
For more about diabetes, please read studies about The hidden connection between cancer and diabetes uncovered and findings of Scientists find the best way to help people with diabetes lose weight.
The study is published in Cureus.
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