Sleep and Insulin Resistance
Reviewed by CDE Mehandi Sharma · Updated
Sleep is rarely mentioned in prediabetes advice, which is an omission worth correcting.
Sleep apnoea — where breathing repeatedly stops and restarts during the night — is a recognised risk factor for insulin resistance and prediabetes, and it is frequently undiagnosed. The signs are loud snoring, gasping or choking during sleep, waking unrefreshed after a full night, and heavy daytime sleepiness.
If your family has commented on your snoring, that is worth raising with a doctor rather than treating as a joke. Treating it can improve both your sleep and your glucose.
Beyond apnoea, ordinary short or poor sleep is its own factor. Sleeping badly tends to increase appetite — particularly for exactly the refined, sweet foods you are trying to eat less of — and makes every other change harder to sustain.
There is also a circular problem here. Poor sleep makes the eating changes harder; the late heavy dinners that come with irregular hours make sleep worse.
Practical things: a reasonably consistent bedtime, no very heavy meal immediately before lying down, and the phone out of reach.
None of this replaces the food and activity changes. It is the factor that makes those two easier or harder, which is why it is worth naming rather than skipping.