Recent research in the journal Diabetes Care found that reducing sleep by 90 minutes for a 6-week period led to increase of insulin resistance in otherwise healthy women who became accustomed to adequate levels of sleep.
For their study, the researchers recruited 38 healthy women, 11 of whom were postmenopausal. The participants normally slept for at least 7 hours every night. The study included two 6-week phases undertaken at random.
In one of the phases, the women were instructed to keep their regular, adequate amount of sleep. In the other phase they had to delay going to sleep by 90 minutes but wake at the same time. To measure the compliance, the researchers used measured using a wearable device. The participants’ glucose, insulin and body fat were checked throughout both phases.
Having completed the analysis of the collected data, the scientists found that reducing sleep by 90 minutes for 6 weeks increased insulin resistance by almost 15% in total. Among postmenopausal women insulin resistance went up by more than 20%.