Lack of sleep raises the risk of diabetes in the elderly

By Fiona Macrae, The Daily Mail

United Kingdom

December 31, 2007

Dicing with diabetes: The study has shown that those who sleep poorly - and particularly the elderly - impair their ability to produce insulin, leading to type-2 diabetes. Poor quality sleep could raise the risk of diabetes in the elderly, a study suggests. Research shows that interruption of deep sleep has a dramatic effect on the body's metabolism and the conversion of sugar into energy, heightening the risk of diabetes. 

Just three nights of disrupted sleep can have the same effect on the body's ability to control sugar levels as putting on more than two stone in weight, the study found. The finding is likely to be particularly relevant to the elderly, whose sleep is usually shorter and of poorer quality than that of younger people. 

In addition, the risk of type-2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, rises with age. The U.S. researchers said it would be wise for older people to take measures to improve their sleep quality. The University of Chicago study looked at the effect of sleep quality on the body's ability to produce insulin, the hormone needed to control blood glucose or sugar levels. 

Nine healthy young men and women were monitored during five nights of sleep. 
During the first two nights, they were allowed to sleep normally. After that, their sleep was regularly disrupted by noises calculated to be loud enough to draw them out of deep sleep without fully waking them. The disruption to deep sleep was equivalent to that seen during the ageing process, with the young volunteers experiencing a quality of sleep more usually seen in people in their 60s. After normal sleep and interrupted sleep the volunteers were given injections of glucose and their blood was sampled to measure how well the sudden influx of sugar was being controlled. 

Analysis showed that sleep quality had a big effect on the body's ability to use insulin to control blood sugar levels, with levels rising by an alarming 23 per cent after just three nights of interrupted sleep. Such an inability to use insulin - or insulin resistance - is thought to be the main cause of type-2 diabetes, which is linked to obesity and affects more than one million Britons. 

The researchers, who report their results in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said that while previous studies have linked quantity of sleep with diabetes, this was the first to make the association with quality of sleep. They added: "Since reduced amounts of deep sleep are typical of ageing and of common obesity-related sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea, these results suggest that strategies to improve sleep quality, as well as quantity, may help to prevent or delay the onset of type-2 diabetes in populations at risk." 

Obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder in which breathing regularly stops or becomes very shallow during sleep. Previous studies have linked lack of sleep to a host of health problems, including high blood pressure, obesity and memory loss. 

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