Evidence mounts that short or poor sleep can lead to increased eating and risk of diabetes
Apr 21, 2009 - 4:00:00 AM
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Further studies are now underway in the Koban laboratory that more closely mimics chronic sleep deprivation in humans. The researchers believe that extending sleep restriction will produce more pronounced glucose intolerance in which glucose levels do not return to normal levels for a longer period, thus providing more evidence that not sleeping enough could lead to diabetes in humans. The researchers also are looking for mechanisms to explain the change in metabolism related to sleep deprivation and the dissociation between weight gain and glucose dysregulation and insulin resistance.
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By Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology,
[RxPG]
Laboratory and epidemiological studies continue to show that sleep curtailment and/or decreased sleep quality can disturb neuroendocrine control of appetite, leading to overeating, and can decrease insulin and/or increase insulin resistance, both steps on the road to Type 2 diabetes.
On April 22, at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans, a panel of leading sleep researchers describes recent and new studies in this fast growing field. The session is part of the scientific program of the American Association of Anatomists (AAA).
Short sleep, poor sleep: novel risk factors for obesity and for type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Eve Van Cauter, University of Chicago, is a specialist in the effect of circadian rhythms on the endocrine system and has conducted several studies in which short-term sleep restriction damaged the body's ability to regulate eating by lowering levels of leptin, the hormone that tells the body when it has had enough. In the AAA symposium, Dr. Van Cauter describes other recently published studies from her group, one showing that only three days sleep disruption is sufficient to increase insulin resistance in humans (thus causing the body to need higher levels of insulin) and a large epidemiological study showing that short sleep over a five year period causes an increase in systolic blood pressure.
Dr. Van Cauter also describes work in other laboratories, such as a multi-center study, headed by Dr. Sanjay Patel, Case Western Reserve Medical School, in which thousands of older patients wore wrist monitors 24 hours a day, allowing researchers to objectively document how long and well they slept instead of relying on self reports. Some scientists and clinicians had believed that the relationship of short/poor sleep and obesity was important in children and adults but waned with age. Dr. Van Cauter says this study found that short/poor sleep was associated with obesity regardless of age.
Energy metabolism during chronic sleep deprivation: sleep less, eat more, don't gain weight, yet show signs of progression toward diabetes.
Panel member Dr. Michael Koban, Morgan State University, reports a new study in which sleep restriction in rats led to glucose intolerance, a prediabetic state in which the blood glucose remains higher than normal after glucose challenge. Significantly, this is the first rodent study of sleep deprivation in which there was no association between glucose dysregulation and weight gain.
For 13 days, the rats were kept awake 20 of every 24 hours, then returned to their cages where they could sleep. As in a number of other studies of sleep deprivation or poor sleep in humans and rats, the sleep restricted rats greatly increased their consumption of food, in this case a human food supplement laced with chocolate, which rats love and which allowed for a more precise measure of consumption than rat chow, which often gets strewn around like bird seed in a feeder. Control rats allowed to sleep as much as they wanted also had access to the same treat, but ate less.
Significantly, while the sleep-deprived rats ate substantially more than well-rested rats, they did not gain weight. This was due, says Dr. Koban, to an increase in energy metabolism. The resting metabolism of the sleep-deprived rats rose sharply, coupled with rapid mobilization of hepatic and muscle glycogen followed by reduction in abdominal white adipose tissue.
Further studies are now underway in the Koban laboratory that more closely mimics chronic sleep deprivation in humans. The researchers believe that extending sleep restriction will produce more pronounced glucose intolerance in which glucose levels do not return to normal levels for a longer period, thus providing more evidence that not sleeping enough could lead to diabetes in humans. The researchers also are looking for mechanisms to explain the change in metabolism related to sleep deprivation and the dissociation between weight gain and glucose dysregulation and insulin resistance.
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