Losing as little as half an hour of sleep per day on weekdays can have long-term consequences for body weight and metabolism, new research has found.
The findings suggest that people who accumulate sleep debt during weekdays and make up for lost sleep over the weekend may risk metabolic disruption, which may promote the onset of Type 2 diabetes.
“While previous studies have shown that short sleep duration is associated with obesity and diabetes, we found that as little as 30 minutes a day sleep debt can have significant effects on obesity and insulin resistance at follow-up,” said lead study author Shahrad Taheri, professor of medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar.
“This reinforces earlier observations that sleep loss is additive and can have metabolic consequences,” Taheri noted.