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Short, long sleep duration affect diabetes development risk in men
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In men but not women, both limited and excessive sleep increase the risk for development of diabetes, according to study findings published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
“In a group of nearly 800 healthy people, we observed sex-specific relationships between sleep duration and glucose metabolism,” Femke Rutters, PhD, of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Virje Universiteit Medical Centre in the Netherlands, said in a press release. “In men, sleeping too much or too little was related to less responsiveness of the cells in the body to insulin, reducing glucose uptake and thus increasing the risk of developing diabetes in the future. In women, no such association was observed.”
Femke Rutters
Rutters and colleagues evaluated data from the European Group for the Study of Insulin Resistance (EGIR-RISC) on 788 adults (mean age, 44 years; 57% women) with an average sleep duration of 7.3 hours. Hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp and the oral glucose insulin sensitivity index model, using an oral glucose tolerance test, were used to measure insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function. The ratio of the maximum value calculated during the final 40 minutes of the clamp and normalized to mean plasma insulin (I) during the same time period and to fat-free mass (M/I) were used to calculate insulin sensitivity. Multiple linear regression stratified by sex was used to analyze the associations of sleep duration with insulin sensitivity and beta-cell function.
In men, an inverted U-shape characterized the association between sleep duration and insulin sensitivity as M/I. That relationship and a trend for oral glucose insulin sensitivity suggested that men with short or long sleep durations have less insulin sensitivity compared with those with average sleep duration. The opposite was observed among women, suggesting that women with short or long sleep duration have more insulin sensitivity compared with women with average sleep duration.
“My research provides us with additional information on the pathophysiology of diabetes,” Rutters told Endocrine Today. “But it also provides us with a potential new lead for the prevention of diabetes. Up until now, the clinicians focused on the traditional diabetes risk factors — diet and physical activity — while this research shows that sleep also might be an important risk factor.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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