No wonder I have Diabetes. All those late night calls from work over
the years. I guess that makes my T2 work related so I sleeping on the
job might be considered therapy.

I'll tell my boss right away. <grin>

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By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
Tue Jan 1, 5:42 PM ET


When Shakespeare called sleep the "chief nourisher of life's feast,"
he may have been well ahead of his time, medically at least.
Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center report that
disrupting sleep damages the body's ability to regulate blood sugar
levels, potentially raising the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

More than 18 million Americans have diabetes and the most common form
is type 2, in which the body either becomes resistant to insulin or
doesn't produce enough of it to regulate sugar in the bloodstream.

In a small experiment, researchers led by Dr. Esra Tasali, an
assistant professor of medicine, found that disrupting the deepest
sleep periods of volunteers rapidly resulted in reduction in their
ability to regulate blood-sugar levels.

The findings are reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers studied the sleep patterns of nine volunteers, five
men and four women, all of normal weight, in good health and aged 20
to 31.

Normal sleep is divided into several stages, with the so-called
slow-wave sleep considered the deepest.

Whenever the volunteers went into slow-wave sleep the researchers made
noise, enough to disturb the sleep though not to fully awaken them.

After just three days the ability of the volunteers to regulate blood
sugar was reduced by 25 percent, the researchers reported.

Earlier studies have indicated that lack of sleep can reduce the
ability to regulate sugar, and this report adds evidence that poor
sleep quality is also a diabetes risk.

"This decrease in slow-wave sleep resembles the changes in sleep
patterns caused by 40 years of aging," Tasali said in a statement.
Young adults spend 80 to 100 minutes per night in slow-wave sleep,
while people over age 60 generally have less than 20 minutes. "In this
experiment," she said, "we gave people in their 20s the sleep of those
in their 60s."

"Since reduced amounts of deep sleep are typical of aging 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," said co-author Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a
professor of medicine.

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Link to the story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080101/ap_on_he_me/sleep_diabetes

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org

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Pete Romfh, telecom geek and amateur gourmet.
Houston, TX, USA