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Sleep duration associated with insulin sensitivity in men, beta cell function in women

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Men who are short or long sleepers have lower insulin sensitivity when compared with men who sleep about 7 to 8 hours per night, according to study findings presented at the 51^st European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meeting.

In a cross-sectional study evaluating the association between sleep duration, insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function in healthy men and women, researchers found no association between sleep duration and insulin sensitivity in women, but noted an association between short and long sleep duration with increased beta cell function.

“Sleep quantity is important, but it seems to have more negative effects [on] insulin sensitivity in men, compared with women,” Femke Rutters, PhD, senior researcher at the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at VUMC, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, told Endocrine Today.

Rutters and colleagues analyzed data from 788 healthy adults (57% women; mean age, 44 years) participating in the European EGIR-RISC study. Researchers measured sleep and physical activity with a single-axis accelerometer, which participants wore only while awake for between 3 and 8 days; insulin sensitivity and beta cell function were measured with a hyperinsulinemic-euglycmic clamp and 2-hour oral glucose tolerance test. Researchers used multiple linear regression to analyze the association between sleep duration, insulin sensitivity and beta cell function. Participants also completed sleep and lifestyle questionnaires.

Adults in the cohort had an average sleep duration of 7.3 hours. Researchers found that men who were short or long sleepers had lower insulin sensitivity compared to men who sleep about 8 hours, observing a positive, U-shaped association between sleep duration and insulin sensitivity. No such association was observed in women.

In women, researchers observed a negative, U-shaped association between sleep duration and beta cell glucose sensitivity. No such association was observed in men.

“[The results were] not totally expected by me, but it made sense when I went back to the literature,” Rutters said during her presentation. “In men, short sleep duration has more negative effects than in women ... and this could be due to the amount of deep sleep. Women, in general, are more effective about getting more deep sleep in a short amount of time. It could also be that this is a cohort effect, but you’re talking about 800 people.”

“The data are cross-sectional, which makes it hard to determine cause and effect, so prospective studies are needed,” Rutters told Endocrine Today. – by Regina Schaffer

For more information:

Rutters, F, et al. Abstract 192. Presented at: 51st EASD Annual Meeting; Sept. 14-18, 2015; Stockholm.

Disclosure: Rutters reports no relevant financial disclosures.