Beyond drowsy, too little sleep ups diabetes risk (USA Today - Lemon Diet)

There's growing evidence that people who regularly sleep too little and at the wrong time suffer long-lasting consequences that a nap won't cure: An increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and other health problems.Lemon Diet"We have a societal conspiracy for sleep deprivation," says Russell Sanna of Harvard Medical School's sleep medicine division, who attended a TEDMED conference last week where scientists called sleep loss one of health care's big challenges.Just how unhealthy is it? Consider how sleep may play a role in the nation's diabetes epidemic.Studies have long shown that people who sleep fewer than five hours a night have an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, the kind that tends to strike later in life.Lemonade DietRotating shift work — three or more night shifts a month interspersed with day or evening hours — raises the risk, too, says a recent report from researchers who analyzed years of medical records from the huge Nurses' Health Study.Diet and physical activity are big factors in Type 2 diabetes. Certainly it's harder to work out or choose an apple over a doughnut when you're tired, especially at 3 a.m. when your body's internal clock knows you should be sleeping.But a study published last week shows sleep plays a more complex role than that. As sleep drops and normal biological rhythms are disrupted, your body physically changes in ways that can help set the stage for diabetes, reports neuroscientist Orfeu Buxton of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.Buxton's team had 21 healthy volunteers spend almost six weeks living in a laboratory where their diet, physical activity, sleep and even the light was strictly controlled.