It may seem like sleep and diabetes have nothing to do with each other but studies are now showing that a lack of sleep can prevent you from maintaining a healthy weight and can lead to diabetes. Here’s what Dr. Michael J. Breus reported over at The Huffington Post:
While sleep may not seem like it belongs in the same category as words that revolve around weight, it actually has everything to do with weight and whether or not you’re at risk for diabetes. Two fascinating studies that just came out to further prove it:
1. One study out of a sleep lab at Penn State College showed that insomniacs who slept only five to six hours a night had greater odds of developing diabetes.
2. The other study, this one from the University of Chicago and published in this month’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, demonstrated that sleep deprivation mixed with sedentary living and free access to food can change the body’s physiology to the point it resembles that of a prediabetic. In other words, the body’s insulin resistance and glucose tolerance shifts, leaning toward a dangerous condition that’s a precursor to full-blown diabetes.
I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty remarkable…and scary. This change in physiology, by the way, in the second study happened over the course of just two weeks as healthy adults were forced to get by on only five hours a night.
Getting in those extra hours of sleep has never meant more now.