Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Insomnia May Increase Risk of Diabetes in Men

Sleep disturbances appear to increase the risk of incident diabetes in men but not in women, according to a Swedish study reported in the November issue of Diabetes Care.

Lead author Dr. Lena Mallon, from University Hospital in Uppsala and her associates noted that increased activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis may mediate an effect of sleep problems on insulin resistance, which in turn is a risk factor for diabetes.

To investigate this topic, Dr. Mallon's group sent questionnaires regarding sleep complaints and other possible risk factors for diabetes to a random sample of subjects ages 45 to 65 years in 1983 and again in 1995.

A total of 1187 subjects completed both questionnaires.
The incidence of diabetes was 6.1% in women and 9.1% in men.

After adjusting for age and other risk factors, multiple logistic regression analysis showed relative risk (RR) for incident diabetes was higher in men with sleep duration of no more than 5 hours.

However, there was no statistically significant relationship between sleep variables and development of new diabetes in women in the study by Dr. Mallon's team.

Diabetes Care 2005;28:2739-2744.
Reuters Health Nov 11

No comments: