Poor Sleep Can Increase Risk To Weight Gain and Diabetes Based On Study

Poor sleep condition known as obstructive sleep apnea had been found by researchers to have strong link in developing diabetes. Sleep apnea is a potentially serious sleeping disorder where an individual stops and starts breathing and the person still feels tired even after sleeping full time, according to Mayo Clinic.

A neurology specialist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Rossana Huerta Albarran, said that the person with poor sleep condition such as sleep apnea is more likely to develop diabetes due to the metabolic changes that happened during sleeping disorder as the insulin resistance increases.

"Any time your blood sugar is really high, your kidneys try to get rid of it by urinating," stated Maarouf, RD, diabetes education director of the Stark Diabetes Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. "So you are probably getting up and going to bathroom all night long -- and not sleeping well."

Poor sleep can lead to weight gain because a person feels tired when there's lack of sleep so the tendency is to get the energy from other sources such as food. When this happens, cholesterol increases due to the metabolic alterations when the brain signals to increase appetite and eat more carbohydrates.

Poor sleep is not only found to be linked in causing diabetes, it also causes hypertension, increase in triglycerides and cholesterol.

Fitness magazine reports that poor sleep can change the nervous system where stress is controlled and hormones are balanced. Lack of sleep leads to insulin-producing cells to cease working the right way and thus increasing the glucose levels and make a person at risk to diabetes. 

Although lack of sleep can trigger diabetes, it can be clearly avoided by changing your lifestyle. When already in bed, don't use any cellphone or tablet anymore. Poor sleep results when people tend to be awake instead of letting sleeping.

Rafael Santana, medical specialist at the Sleep Disorders Clinic of the UNAM, said that there's no rule for getting enough sleep, but what matters is the quality of sleep. An adult could have 5 or 6 or 8 hours depending on the age and needs of their body, according to Science Daily.

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