Early to Bed... How being a night owl increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise” – the expression is quite true. Night owls tend to feel sluggish in the morning and active in the evening. This sleep pattern also increases a person’s desire to stay up late and sleep late. If this is your case, a recent study suggests that you may have a higher risk of type 2 diabetes as well as a variety of harmful lifestyle choices. A “late-to-bed-and-rise” sleep pattern and a number of unhealthy habits have been linked to an increased risk of developing chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes, researchers said. Let’s take a closer look. Also read: Investing in Sleep: What is sleep banking? Is it a good idea? What does the study say? According to CNN, lead author Sina Kianersi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston said, “When we looked at the relationship between chronotype and diabetes, we found night owls had a 72 per cent increased risk of developing diabetes over the eight years of our study.” “Night owls overall were more likely to have a poor diet, to be less physically active, to use alcohol in higher quantities, to have an unhealthy BMI (body mass index), to smoke and to sleep less or more than the seven to nine hours that’s recommended each night,” she said. [caption id=“attachment_13124002” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Everybody’s intrinsic 24-hour biological clock, or circadian rhythm, controls how much of the sleep-inducing melatonin is released. Pixabay[/caption] The risk of developing type 2 diabetes among night owls fell to 19 per cent after the researchers removed these harmful habits from the data in comparison to early birds or persons who enjoy getting up and going to bed early. They also found that women with evening chronotype are more likely to have unhealthy lifestyles The Nurses’ Health Study II, one of the largest studies of the risk factors for significant chronic diseases in women, included over 64,000 nurses in the study, which was released on Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Self-reported chronotype, diet quality, weight, BMI, sleep schedule, smoking, drinking, physical activity, and a family history of diabetes were among the variables the study collected from 2009 to 2017. To ascertain who developed diabetes, that information was compared with medical records. The development of diabetes was significantly associated with night owls who worked during the day, but not with those who started work later in the day or overnight shifts, according to researchers. “When chronotype was not matched with work hours we saw an increase in type 2 diabetes risk. That was another very interesting finding suggesting that more personalized work scheduling could be beneficial,” said coauthor Tianyi Huang, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in a statement. Also read: Sleep Tight: Why you should go to bed at the same time every night Why sleep pattern is so important? Everybody’s intrinsic 24-hour biological clock, or circadian rhythm, controls how much of the sleep-inducing melatonin is released. If you naturally rise early, your circadian rhythm will produce melatonin considerably earlier than usual, enabling you to be more active in the morning. The internal body clock of night owls, however, secretes melatonin at a considerably later time, making early mornings sluggish and delaying peak activity and alertness until later in the afternoon and evening. “Secretion of hormones can change because of staying up late, our body’s temperature regulation can change, and metabolism can change in a negative way. We get a sort of domino effect, which can increase our risk of having diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other chronic illnesses,” Kianersi said. Early risers typically do better in school and are more active during the day, which may help to explain why studies have shown that they have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. The study is not the first to discover a connection between a later sleep chronotype and harmful habits that may cause disease. According to one study from June, those who stay up late are more likely to establish unhealthy habits like drinking and smoking, which increases their risk of dying young. A 2022 study found that night owls were more sedentary, had poorer levels of cardiovascular fitness, and burnt less fat both at rest and active than early birds. Additionally, night owls were more likely to have insulin resistance, which is a precursor to diabetes. As a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes and heart disease, visceral body fat in the abdomen is higher in night owls. Also read: A Good Night’s Rest: Why more people are waking up to sleep tourism in 2023 Can a person change chronotype? “A significant portion of the risk of developing diabetes is due to lifestyle,” Kianersi said. “However, because chronotype is shaped by both our genetics and the environment we know that night owls can reduce their risk by maintaining a healthy lifestyle.” Thought to be inherited, individual sleep chronotypes can be altered with effort, according to Medical News. Dr Steven Malin, an associate professor of metabolism and endocrinology at Rutgers University, suggested an evening chronotype wanting to become a morning person to think about waking up 15 to 30 minutes earlier while it is still light out, having breakfast, and getting some extra exercise in the morning. They can try avoiding food and exercise after dinner, turning down the lights sooner, and attempting to go to bed 15 to 30 minutes earlier. With inputs from agencies Also read: Noisy Nights: Why snoring before the age of 50 is a reason to worry