You need at least 7 hours of sleep to avoid being insulin resistant and keep healthy
Shortening the duration of the time you sleep to less than 6 hours is bad for your health. It can make your body insulin resistant and your pancreatic insulin-secreting cells less responsive in secreting insulin as well as causing an imbalance in the hormones that regulate satiety. This can all be brought about within a few DAYS of sleep disruption, says Professor Eva van Auter of the University of Chicago. The work that has been done over several years was presented in June 2007 at The Endocrine Society Meeting in Toronto, Canada.
If you do not get enough good quality sleep you set yourself up for insulin resistance, obesity and are at higher risk for diabetes.
And it seems that over the last 50 years, we have gradually reduced our sleeping hours by 20-39%.
Sleep deprivation leads to:
- Insulin resistance
- Sleep deprived pancreatic beta cells appear to be too dizzy to respond to the normal calls to secrete more insulin, causing a state of relative insulin deficiency
- And to top it all, the concentration of the satiety hormone Leptin drops whereas the appetite –stimulating hormone grehlin is increased.
Night shift workers can attest to the practical impact of the last statement.
So, if you are sleeping well and enough, not only is your body in balance, but you will not be visiting the fridge after everyone else is gone to bed!
Back