An intriguing follow-up from the ongoing
terrific Nurses’ Health Study has determined that nurses with low levels of
melatonin, that hormone we produce at night during sleep, have a significantly
higher (over double) the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes compared to women
with higher levels of melatonin.
That raises the very interesting
possibility – which this study was not designed to look for – that not getting
enough sleep at night (that is, by not allowing normal levels of melatonin to
be released) may lead to changes that result in Type 2 diabetes, and hence all
its complications – amputations, blindness, cardiovascular disease, and on and
on - as well.
One conclusion we should avoid as yet,
though, namely that taking melatonin supplements can counteract that higher
propensity to diabetes that’s associated with less sleep.
Supplements never work as well as the real
thing, and there’s no reason to believe that this situation will turn out any
differently.
Anyway, what better preventive therapy to
suggest than to get more sleep?
