Research

Hormonal

Sleep disruption leads to metabolic dysregulation (decreased insulin sensitivity, altered leptin/ghrelin) increasing the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes.

Poor sleep disrupts the hormones that control hunger (ghrelin increases, leptin decreases) and reduces your body's ability to use insulin. This makes you more likely to gain weight and develop type 2 diabetes, even if your diet and exercise habits haven't changed. Fixing sleep continuity is a key metabolic intervention.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Suppression of SWS was associated with decreased insulin sensitivity... Other metabolic changes include decreased leptin and increased ghrelin that may contribute to increased appetite... Long-term consequences of sleep disruption in otherwise healthy individuals include... weight-related issues, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus...
Goran Medić et al. · Nature and Science of Sleep · 2017

Why this rating

Supported by experimental studies on insulin sensitivity and large longitudinal studies/meta-analyses showing increased relative risk for T2DM.

Source

Short- and long-term health consequences of sleep disruption

Goran Medić et al. · Nature and Science of Sleep · 2017

DOI 10.2147/nss.s134864

narrative_reviewCited 1,716×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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