Do you have diabetes? Sleep longer!!

There is enough evidence to show that sleep deprivation may lead to higher risk of developing diabetes. Now you have more reasons to sleep better if you already have diabetes. The results of a study published in the journal Sleep show that if you sleep longer, you may be able to control your diabetes better.

A group of researchers from Belgium investigated to see if extending the duration of sleep by one hour every day has beneficial effect on glucose metabolism in healthy adults who are chronically sleep deprived. When these volunteers increased their usual sleep time by one hour every day for 40 days they found out that these adults have better blood sugar control by increasing their ability to respond to the insulin produced by the body.

Getting extra sleep when you are sleep deprived may be an easy and low cost intervention to control your blood sugars.

Obviously, just sleeping well alone will not help control your diabetes. You still need to take your medication, follow healthy diet and lifestyle.

The results are impressive although these results need to be confirmed in larger scale studies. We do not know how much extra sleep we need to help control the blood sugars.  If you are already getting enough sleep, which is about 7-9 hours in adults, you may not have much benefit from sleeping longer. On the other hand, if you are sleep deprived and have difficulty controlling blood sugars, every bit of extra Z's help!!

References: 

1. Leproult R, Deliens G, Gilson M, Peigneux P. Beneficial impact of sleep extension on fasting insulin sensitivity in adults with habitual sleep restriction. SLEEP 2015;38(5):707–715.

2. https://www.sleephow.com/sleep-deprivation