Dont blame everything on food. Not all diseases and health concerns are caused by the foods we eat. Unhealthy diet is just a fraction of the causes of ailments. Poor lifestyle is a significant factor and this includes lack of sleep, no exercise and smoking.
Time and again, researchers have proven that “short sleeping” can cause plenty of health troubles and is linked to obesity.
So, what does this lack of sleep leading to? Read on.
* Heart disease. In a 2010 study published in the journal Sleep, researchers discovered that sleeping for less than seven hours a night can increase risk of heart disease. And this is particularly true to women under 60 especially those who sleep around five hours or less a night have double risk to acquire the disease.
* Diabetes. According to a study in the journal Diabetes in 2011, University of Chicago and Northwestern University researchers found that when people with type 2 diabetes slept poorly at night, they had a nine percent higher fasting glucose level, a 30 percent higher fasting insulin level, and a 43 percent higher insulin resistance level.
Diabetics with insomnia fared even worse – their fasting glucose levels were 23 percent higher, their fasting insulin levels were 48 percent higher, and their insulin resistance levels were 82 percent higher than diabetics who didn’t have insomnia.
* Urinary problems. Five years of sleeping restlessly or too little (fewer than 5 hours a night) can increase by 80 to 90 percent a woman’s risk of needing to wake at night to urinate (nocturia) or of becoming incontinent. A whopping 42 percent of the women classified themselves as restless sleepers, compared with 34 percent of the men. The researchers theorize that sleeping poorly causes inflammation, which in turn can lead to urinary problems.
* Breast cancer. Researchers at Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan, studied data from nearly 24,000 women ages 40 to 79, and learned that those who slept fewer than six hours a night had a 62 percent higher risk for breast cancer, while those who slept more than nine hours a night had a 28 percent lower risk.
Source: Journal News
