Insomniac Diabetics at Greater Risk of Complications

Findings from the largest study of its kind to establish a link between sleep and diabetes suggest that poor sleep may contribute to worse outcomes in people with diabetes. Kristen Knutson, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and colleagues monitored the sleep of 40 people with diabetes for six nights. Results showed that people with diabetes who slept poorly had higher insulin resistance, found it more difficult to control the disease, and were at greater risk of complications. They were also found to have a reduced quality of life and a reduced life expectancy. Sleep problems such as obstructive sleep apnea are more common in people with diabetes, and poor sleep has been proposed as a risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The researchers believe that intervention to help diabetics sleep well may be as effective an intervention as the most commonly used anti-diabetes drugs.

Kristen L Knutson, Eve Van Cauter, Phyllis Zee, Kiang Liu, Diane S Lauderdale. Cross-sectional associations between measures of sleep and markers of glucose metabolism among subjects with and without diabetes: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Sleep Study. Diabetes Care. 2011;3:1171-1176.