Researchers identify the sleep habit that makes you twice as likely to develop diabetes
The way all Americans sleep can be divided into four categories, according to a major new study.
And those in two of these groups are at least 30 percent more likely to develop a range of conditions, including heart disease, cancer, diabetes and depression.
Scientists from Penn State’s College of Health and Human Development tracked the sleep habits of nearly 3,700 participants over the course of a decade.
Using historical national data, from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS), they looked at how middle-aged participants rated their own sleep between the years 2004 and 2014.
They tried to determine how people’s sleep patterns changed as they got older, and how that might be related to developing chronic conditions.
The Penn State analysis found that each participant fell into one of four different categories: good sleepers, weekend catch-up sleepers, insomniac sleepers and nappers.
Good sleepers reported sleeping long, consistent hours and feeling satisfied and alert during the day.
Weekend catch-up sleepers were those individuals who slept irregularly or shorter during the week, but slept longer on the weekend.
More than half of the participants fell into the two worst sleep categories: insomniacs and nappers.
Insomniacs had difficulty falling asleep and generally slept less well, compared to the other cohorts. People with insomnia reported feeling more tired during the day and being less happy with their sleep.
The final sleep category identified was napping. These participants were quite consistent nighttime sleepers, but reported frequent naps during the day.
The Penn State team then looked for patterns of disease risk among the different sleep groups. They controlled for other contributing factors, such as underlying health conditions, socioeconomic factors and the work environment.
Shocking graph shows the impact of one night of poor sleep, which can cause your brain to function more slowly, affecting concentration, while a person’s sex drive can also drop due to exhaustion
They found that insomniacs had a 28 to 81 percent higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and depression, compared to good sleepers.
Nappers also had a 128 percent increased risk of diabetes, compared to good sleepers, and a 62 percent increased risk of frailty.
Experts say this latest finding may be due to the fact that sleep frequency increases with age.
Previous studies have found that too little sleep can increase the risk of developing dementia, stroke, heart attack and liver disease. One study found that about 83 percent of people with depression also have insomnia.
According to the CDC, insufficient sleep means your body and mind don’t have as much time to recover and recuperate from the stresses of the day — and chronic stress has been shown to be a factor in a number of diseases.
And while it’s counterintuitive, doctors have also pointed out the risks of too much sleep.
According to research, sleeping too much, as found in the nap group, has been linked to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression and headaches. Johns Hopkins University.
Some research has suggested that napping does not cause diabetes, but the opposite is true: the condition can cause fatigue that increases the need to nap.
Although health status was taken into account in the new study, some participants may have been undiagnosed.
Another theory is that those who nap tend to have a higher BMI and are therefore at greater risk for the condition. Another theory is that sleeping too much increases inflammation in the body.
Those who nap regularly are up to 128 percent more likely to develop diabetes, according to the new study.
There are also demographic factors that help explain these patterns, said study author Soomi Lee, director of the Sleep, Stress, and Health Laboratory at Penn State.
Unemployed people and people with less education were more likely to fall into the insomnia category, Lee found. An earlier study from the University of Glasgow reported similar results: unemployed people tended to sleep worse than working people.
This is evidence, Lee said at a university press releasethat environmental factors can play a major role in sleep quality.
‘These results may indicate that it is very difficult to change our sleep habits because sleep health is embedded in our overall lifestyle.
‘It may also indicate that people still don’t know anything about the importance of their sleep and about sleep health behaviours.’
This also means that there are things you may be able to do to change your patterns and reduce your risk of developing sleep-related problems.
“We need to make more efforts to educate the public about good sleep health. There are sleep hygiene behaviors that people can do to improve their sleep, such as not using cell phones in bed, exercising regularly and avoiding caffeine in the late afternoon,” she said.