Study finds  diabetics need 7 hours and 19 minutes of sleep  for insulin sensitivity

• The estimated glucose disposal rate is a test that can help measure insulin resistance, a primary driver of type 2 diabetes.
• A cross-sectional study found that 7.32 hours of sleep was ideal for the estimated glucose disposal rate.
• Increasing sleep until 7.32 hours was associated with improved estimated glucose disposal rates, while increasing it to or above this amount was associated with worse estimated glucose disposal rates.
• Further analysis suggested that moderate weekend catch-up sleep may be helpful for insulin resistance, but possibly harmful for people already getting enough sleep.

Experts are interested in finding the optimal amount of sleep for different aspects of health. One area of interest is how sleep relates to metabolic syndromeTrusted Source, a cluster of conditions that increase risk for serious diseases like coronary heart disease.

One recent study explored how sleep duration relates to insulin sensitivity, which can be a driving factor for type 2 diabetes.

The authors of this study explain that in metabolic syndrome, the body is less responsive to insulin.

The study, published in BMJ Open Diabetes Research & Care, found that a little less than seven and a half hours of sleep is linked to the best level of insulin sensitivity.

Moreover, for people who got less sleep than this amount, getting over one and up to two hours more sleep on the weekend appeared to help insulin sensitivity the most.

What’s the ideal amount of sleep? 

For this cross-sectional study, researchers gathered their data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination SurveyTrusted Source.

They looked at how sleep was related to estimated glucose disposal rate. This measurement takes into account hemoglobin A1C, high blood pressure, and waist circumference, which also reflects insulin resistance. An increased estimated glucose disposal rate (eGDR) would indicate less insulin resistance.

They also examined how catching up on sleep over the weekend played into things.

Researchers excluded certain individuals, such as pregnant participants and individuals younger than age 20, ultimately including 23,475 participants in their analysis. They had access to participants’ answers to how much they typically slept on weekdays. For about 11,000 participants, they also had data on about how many hours participants slept on weekends.

They then broke down the amounts of weekend catch-up sleep into four categories, ranging from no weekend catch-up sleep to more than two hours of weekend catch-up sleep.

Seven and a half hours of sleep was the median for sleep during the week, while eight hours was the median over the weekend.

Researchers identified a non-linear relationship between weekday sleep and eGDR, specifically an inverted U-shape. They estimated the turning point to be about 7 hours and 19 minutes of sleep, or 7.32 hours. Up to this amount, getting more sleep was linked to higher eGDR. But once people slept 7 hours and 19 minutes or more, getting even more sleep was linked to lower eGDR.

When they looked at different groups separately, the results were mostly the same. The connection between sleeping 7 hours and 19 minutes or more and having lower eGDR was especially strong for women, adults aged 40 to 59, and people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher.

-Medical News Today