IF YOU are lucky enough to get more than nine hours of sleep a night you may in fact be causing yourself harm. Sleeping too much or too little has been found as a potentially deadly consequence for millions of people living with a health condition. Scientists in Denmark looked at almost 400 people and measured how much they slept over 10 days.
All participants had recently been diagnsed with type 2 diabetes , having had the condition for an average of three and a half years. An estimated 4.4 million people in the UK have diabetes, according to Diabetes UK, of which 90 per cent have type 2.
And a further 1.2 million people could be living with type 2 diabetes but are undiagnosed . The latest study aimed to see how sleep impacts their risk of further harms.
After having their sleep data collected, Danish participants were classified into three categories - those who had short sleep (less than seven hours), those who had optimal (seven to nine hours), and those who had too much (nine hours or more). The researchers looked for evidence of microvascular damage, which is damage to the small blood vessels that could ultimtely lead to more serious problems, such as vision loss and decline in kidney function. Prevalence of microvascular damage was 38 per cent, 18 per cent, and 31 per cent in the short, optimal, and long sleep duration groups, respectively.
Short sleep duration was significantly associated with a 2.6 times increased risk of microvascular disease compared with optimal s.