Too little or too much: Too little or too much sleep linked to blood vessel damage in people with diabetes

MONDAY, July 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Diabetics who sleep too much or too little are more likely to suffer damage to small blood vessels, a condition that can lead to damage to organs throughout the body.

A new study reports that short sleep duration is associated with a 2.6-fold increased risk of damage to small blood vessels, also known as microvascular disease, in people with diabetes.

Similarly, the study found that long sleep duration was also associated with a 2.3-fold increased risk of microvascular disease.

“In newly diagnosed patients with type 2 diabetes, both short and long sleep duration are associated with a higher prevalence of microvascular disease compared to optimal nocturnal sleep duration,” concluded the research team led by Mette Johansen and Thomas Oleson from the Steno Diabetes Centre Odense at Odense University Hospital, Denmark.

Damage to small blood vessels caused by diabetes can lead to a wide range of complications, including blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage, stroke and heart disease, experts say.

In this study, researchers tracked the sleep of nearly 400 people with type 2 diabetes. Short sleep was defined as less than seven hours, and long sleep was defined as nine hours or more.

The researchers found that, on average, about 12 percent of patients had short sleep periods, while 28 percent had long sleep periods.

Additionally, the researchers found that 38% of diabetics with short sleep and 31% of diabetics with long sleep had damage to small blood vessels.

Researchers have found that age dramatically increases the risk of short sleep.

The results showed that in patients aged 62 years and older, short sleep was associated with a 5.7-fold increased risk of small blood vessel disease.

“Age strengthens the association between short sleep duration and microvascular disease, suggesting greater vulnerability among older adults,” the research team writes.

The team said it might be worth including sleep as one of the factors people with diabetes should look at, but acknowledged that more research is needed to better understand the impact of sleep deprivation on diabetics.

The researchers will present this research at the next annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, which will be held in Madrid in September next year.

Results presented at medical conferences should be considered preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more information about microvascular complications of diabetes.

SOURCE: Diabetologia, press release, July 11, 2024