There is a God…having a lie-in at the weekends is good for your health, and helps prevent diabetes. A few hours extra sleep improves the body’s ability to clear glucose (blood sugar) from the bloodstream, and this keeps diabetes at bay.
Many of us don’t get enough sleep during the busy working week, and this affects the body’s ability to use insulin, a hormone it creates to regulate blood sugar levels. Eventually, this insensitivity or intolerance can lead to type 2 diabetes, a chronic condition that is the seventh leading cause of death in the West.
In an experiment with 19 healthy young men who slept for around six hours a night during the week, researchers found that the participants’ insulin sensitivity increased after they had slept for 10 hours for three nights over the weekend.
(Source: The Endocrine Society’s 95th annual meeting, San Francisco, June 18, 2013).
