The increasing incidence of inadequate sleep is joining the Western lifestyle's trademarks of overeating and lack of physical activity to constitute a dangerous trifecta that could trigger diabetes.
One's amount of sleep, or lack of it, very well could tip the scales either toward health or to diabetic illness, according to a new study at the University of Chicago.

The researchers devised a study to test the link between lack of sleep and diabetes that involved a group of healthy middle-aged men and women. Group members were subjected to two 14-day periods of “couch potato” living in which they were sedentary and had free access to food. During the first period, they were allowed to sleep for 8.5 hours. During the second period, they were allowed to sleep for only 5.5 hours.

When their hours of sleep were reduced to 5.5 hours for the second 14-day period, the subjects showed changes in their response to two common sugar tests, responses that were similar to those observed in people with an increased risk of developing diabetes.

“Our findings raise the possibility that when the unhealthy aspects of the Westernized lifestyle are combined with reduced sleep duration, this might contribute to the increased risk of many overweight and sedentary individuals developing diabetes,” said Dr. Plamen Penev, senior author of the study. “If confirmed by future larger studies, these results would indicate that a healthy lifestyle should include not only healthy eating habits and adequate amounts of physical activity, but also obtaining a sufficient amount of sleep.”

The authors of the study, which appears in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, emphasized that larger studies are needed to determine the exact impact of chronic lack of sleep on human glucose metabolism.