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According to a study financed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers discovered a critical link between chronic poor sleep and increasing insulin resistance in women, particularly postmenopausal individuals.
The study, published in Diabetes Care, highlights the critical significance of regular sleep in lowering the incidence of type 2 diabetes, a condition caused by inadequate insulin utilization to manage blood sugar levels.
Marishka Brown, Director of the National Center on Sleep Disorder Research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), said, “Women report poorer sleep than men, so understanding how sleep disturbances impact their health across the lifespan is critical, especially for postmenopausal women.”
While previous studies have explored the connection between sleep restriction and conditions such as cardiovascular disease and hypertension, this research specifically focuses on women, examining the effects of prolonged, mild sleep restriction – a mere reduction of 1.5 hours per night.
The study included 40 women aged 20 to 75 who had an increased risk of cardiometabolic disorders due to variables such as obesity, overweight, a family history of type 2 diabetes, raised lipid levels, or cardiovascular disease.
Participants were divided into two six-week periods, one with healthy sleep habits and the other with sleep limited to 6.2 hours per night, which corresponded to the average sleep duration of US people with insufficient sleep.
The findings demonstrated a significant increase in insulin resistance, particularly in postmenopausal women, emphasizing the possibility for type 2 diabetes progression to be accelerated by chronic sleep deprivation.
Marie-Pierre St-Onge, senior author on the study, said that the need for further exploration into the health effects of even minor sleep deficits in women across different life stages and backgrounds.
“What we’re seeing is that more insulin is needed to normalize glucose levels in the women under conditions of sleep restriction, and even then, the insulin may not have been doing enough to counteract rising blood glucose levels of postmenopausal women,” said Marie-Pierre St-Onge
Source:IT
