Poor Long-Term Sleep Trajectories Tied to Diabetes

TUESDAY, Aug. 13, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Adults with suboptimal sleep duration trajectories are more likely to develop incident diabetes, according to a study published online June 27 in Diabetologia.

Qian Xiao, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and colleagues assessed long-term trajectories of sleep duration and incident diabetes in 22,285 Black adults and 13,737 White adults participating in the Southern Community Cohort Study.

The researchers found that compared with the normal-normal trajectory, suboptimal sleep trajectories were associated with higher likelihoods of developing diabetes. Long-normal and normal-long showed a similar trend. Suboptimal sleep trajectories were consistently associated with incident diabetes across all sociodemographic subgroups. Short-long and normal-short trajectories showed an interaction with race, whereas long-long and short-short trajectories showed an interaction with education.

“Our study contributes new information to support the importance of sleep health in midlife, particularly maintaining regular sleep schedules over time, to reduce the risk of adverse cardiometabolic conditions,” coauthor Kelsie Full, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, said in a statement.

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