Research Finds A Link Between Sleep Quality & Blood Sugar Control

For this study, researchers set out to investigate how sleep duration, timing, and quality can affect people's blood sugar fluctuations.

To do so, they pooled nearly 1,000 healthy adults for a two-week study. Over the course of the two weeks, participants wore movement-tracking devices that measured their sleep quality and glucose-monitoring devices that recorded their blood sugar after eating a standardized breakfast each morning.

The findings suggest that a later bedtime and poor sleep quality could result in lower glycemic control, as well as suboptimal blood sugar levels. An earlier bedtime and better sleep quality, on the other hand, were associated with greater blood sugar control and healthier blood sugar levels. The positive effect seemed to go both ways: After maintaining healthy blood sugar levels post-breakfast, participants experienced better sleep quality.

While the study authors note more personalized sleep guidelines are likely necessary to apply these findings to individuals on a broader scale, their findings "underscore the importance of sleep in regulating metabolic health" and indicate "sleep duration, efficiency and midpoint are important determinants of postprandial glycemic control at a population level."