Catching up on sleep with a lie-in reduced diabetes risk

New research by Branco Weiss fellow Josiane Broussard on links between sleep loss and diabetes received attention by BBC, NBC’s Today and The Huffington Post.

Her newest findings, published in the American Diabetes Association’s Diabetes Care, show that catching up on sleep with a lie-in could reduce diabetes risk in humans. In a separate animal study presented as a poster at The Obesity Society meeting, her findings suggested that one night of sleep deprivation might be as detrimental to insulin sensitivity as six months of unhealthy eating.

In the human study, 19 healthy, young men participated in two different study conditions. In one condition, they lived in the laboratory and slept for 8.5 hours each night for four days. In the other, they slept for 4.5 hours for four days, followed by two recovery nights.

After four days of sleep restriction, insulin sensitivity was reduced by 23 percent in comparison to normal sleep, increasing their diabetes risk by 16 percent. However, after 2 nights of nearly 10 hours of sleep on average, insulin sensitivity returned to normal, healthy levels. Broussard notes that while it is a promising sign, it is not known whether recovery would occur if this habit is repeated week in and week out. It is still ideal to get enough sleep every night since following this pattern every week likely means you will not remain as healthy as if you never suffered from sleep loss.

In the animal study presented at The Obesity Society, insulin sensitivity was measured in eight male dogs before and after one night of total sleep deprivation. After six months on a high-fat diet, insulin sensitivity was again assessed after normal sleep and after one night of sleep deprivation. It was found that one night of sleep deprivation reduced insulin sensitivity by 33 percent. For comparison, the high-fat diet reduced insulin sensitivity by 21 percent.

Read the paper on Diabetes Care

Read the story on BBC

Read the story on Today