Sleep Deprivation in Teenagers Increases Type 2 Diabetes Risk

Poor sleep habits may put adolescents at higher risk for developing insulin resistance that in turn could lead to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A new studyhas discovered a relationship between shorter sleep duration and insulin resistance, independent of obesity.Researchers tracked sleep duration in 245 otherwise healthy high school students over 1 week during the school year. Participants provided fasting blood draws, kept a sleep diary, and wore a wrist actigraph to record their periods of inactivity.

The actigraphs recorded an average of 6.4 hours of sleep on school nights, less sleep than on the weekends. Linear regression analyses that adjusted for age, race, sex, body mass index, and waist circumference showed that the shorter the nightly sleep duration during the week, the higher the level of insulin resistance. Long sleep was not associated with elevated insulin.

Researchers said that their study is the first to associate shorter sleep duration with insulin resistance in healthy adolescents. They suggest that teenagers who normally sleep 6 hours on school nights could improve their insulin resistance by 9% and benefit their overall metabolic health if they sleep 1 additional hour nightly.

The National Sleep Foundation recommendsthat adolescents get 9.25 hours of sleep per night and keep to established bedtime and wake-up routines.

Source: Modern Medicine