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March 5, 2024
2 minutes of reading
Key takeaways:
- Sleep durations of 5 hours or less increased the risk of type 2 diabetes.
- The researchers noted that obstructive sleep apnea may limit the impact of a healthy diet on diabetes risk.
Research showed that shorter sleep duration increased the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even among those with healthy eating habits.
According Diana Aline Noga, PhD, A researcher at Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues, while it has been established that a healthy dietary pattern can help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, “the extent to which adherence to such a diet can mitigate the elevated risk of [type 2 diabetes] “The association with chronic short sleep duration is less clear.”
“This area of research is particularly challenging because of the tendency of poor sleep to promote unhealthy food choices,” they wrote in Open JAMA Network.
The researchers hypothesized that a healthy dietary pattern would ultimately reduce the risk of diabetes among those with shorter sleep periods.
Nôga and colleagues analyzed data from 247,867 participants in the UK Biobank (mean age, 55 years; 52.3% women) who were classified into four sleep duration groups: normal (7-8 hours per day), mild short (6 hours per day). , moderately short (5 hours per day) and extremely short (3-4 hours per day).
They also evaluated the dietary patterns of the participants, which were classified according to a score from 0, or least healthy, to 5, or most healthy.
During a median follow-up of 12.5 years, 3.2% of participants were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
The researchers found that individuals who slept 5 hours (adjusted aHR = 1.16; 95% CI, 1.05-1.28) and those who slept between 3 and 4 hours (aHR = 1.41; 95% CI, %, 1.19-1.68) had a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes versus people who reported a sleep duration of 7 to 8 hours.
Meanwhile, individuals with a healthy diet score of 4 (HR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.7-0.96) or 5 (HR = 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63 -0.88) were less likely to develop type 2 diabetes compared to those with a healthy diet score of 0.
However, contrary to the hypothesis of Nôga and colleagues, the association between shorter sleep duration and type 2 diabetes remained even among people who followed a healthy diet in both the adjusted and unadjusted analyses.
There were several limitations to the study, the researchers said. For example, they could not determine whether certain types of diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, could influence the risk of diabetes in people with short sleep periods.
“In addition, there may be specific macronutrients or micronutrients, not explored in this study, that could more effectively counteract the adverse metabolic effects induced by sleep loss,” they wrote.
Nôga and colleagues noted that obstructive sleep apnea is known to increase the risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, which could explain the findings.
“Given this possibility, the effectiveness of healthy dietary patterns in mitigating the adverse effects of short sleep on glucose metabolism may be limited if obstructive sleep apnea coexists,” they wrote.
