How your sleep habits can raise your diabetes risk by 34%

This could be a wake-up call for people whose sleep habits vary from night to night.

A new study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston links very irregular sleep patterns to a 34% greater diabetes risk than steady slumber.

“Our findings underscore the importance of consistent sleep patterns as a strategy to reduce Type 2 diabetes,” said lead author Sina Kianersi, a research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine.

A new study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston links very irregular sleep patterns to a 34% greater diabetes risk than a steady sleep schedule. Getty Images/iStockphoto

Type 2 diabetes is among the top 10 global leading causes of death and disability. The number of people around the world with the chronic condition is on pace to more than double to 1.3 billion by 2050.

For this study, more than 84,000 UK residents wore accelerometers — devices like watches that monitor movement — for seven nights.

Type 2 diabetes is among the top 10 global leading causes of death and disability. Getty Images

Participants were 62 years old on average and initially free of diabetes.

Researchers followed the volunteers for about 7.5 years, tracking their diabetes development mostly through medical records.

They found that people whose sleep duration varies by more than an hour from night to night face the 34% elevated diabetes risk.

The association between irregular sleep and diabetes was more pronounced in people who slept longer and had a lower genetic risk for the disease.

The findings were published Wednesday in Diabetes Care.

Sleep is important for blood sugar control, and high blood sugar is a hallmark of diabetes. Getty Images

Poor sleep has long been known to be a major risk factor for diabetes. Sleep is important for blood sugar control, and high blood sugar is a hallmark of diabetes.

A March study found that people who sleep less than six hours a day have a “notably higher risk” of developing the disorder compared with those who slumber seven to eight hours.

Kianersi’s team acknowledged some limitations to their study, including that lifestyle information about the participants was collected up to five years before the accelerometer research began. Also, the seven-day sleep assessment does not capture long-term snooze patterns.

Since the study volunteers were mostly older, healthy and white, the researchers plan to test their theory on younger people and those with different racial backgrounds.

“Our findings have the potential to improve diabetes prevention on multiple levels,” Kianersi said.

“Clinically, they might inform better patient care and treatment plans. Public health guidelines could promote regular sleep patterns,” he continued. “However, more research is needed to fully understand the mechanism and confirm the results in other populations.”