Lack of sleep puts teens at risk of diabetes

February 15, 2016

Boys who lack deep, or slow-wave sleep, as teens have a higher chance of developing insulin resistance. They are also at greater risk for developing type 2 diabetes, increased visceral fat, and impaired attention.

Slow-wave sleep (SWS) is an important stage of sleep that is involved in memory consolidation and recovery after sleep deprivation, and is also associated with reduced cortisol and inflammation.

“On a night following sleep deprivation, we’ll have significantly more slow-wave sleep to compensate for the loss,” said Jordan Gaines, a Penn State neuroscience researcher, “We also know that we lose slow-wave sleep most rapidly during early adolescence. Given the restorative role of slow-wave sleep, we weren’t surprised to find that metabolic and cognitive processes were affected during this developmental period.”

Gaines analyzed results collected through the Penn State Child Cohort in order to study long-term effects of SWS loss from childhood to adolescence. The cohort included 700 children from the general central Pennsylvania population, ages 5 to 12. Eight years later, 421 participants were followed up during adolescence — 53.9 percent were male.

Gaines found that in boys, a greater loss of SWS between childhood and adolescence was significantly associated with insulin resistance, and this loss was marginally associated with increased belly fat and impaired attention. However, Gaines did not find any associations between SWS and insulin resistance, physical health or brain function in girls.

Importantly, the participants’ sleep duration did not decline significantly with age, suggesting that the effects observed were due to a loss of this “deeper” stage of sleep, according to the researcher.

“More longitudinal studies are needed to replicate these findings, especially in other age groups,” said Gaines. ” The best thing we can do for ourselves today is keep a consistent sleep schedule, so as not to deprive ourselves of any more slow-wave sleep than we’re already naturally losing with age.”

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