Lack of sleep increases risk.

• Position: Diabetes

If you need an excuse to turn in early, results of a study from D'You-ville College, Buffalo, N.Y., provides a good one, showing that people who sleep less than six hours a night during the workweek are three times more likely to have elevated levels of blood sugar than those who get six to eight hours of slumber.

"This research supports growing evidence of the association of inadequate sleep with adverse health issues," says the study's first author, Lisa Rafalson, a fellow in the Department of Family Medicine. "To our knowledge no other studies have reported specifically on the association of sleep and impaired fasting glucose, but our estimates are in line with studies that examined the association of sleep, impaired glucose tolerance, and type 2 diabetes.

"Impaired fasting glucose--a glucose level between 100-125 mg/dl [milligrams per deciliter] is known as pre-diabetes, and about 25% of people who have impaired fasting glucose will, at some point, develop type 2 diabetes," Rafalson explains.

The researchers suggest several mechanisms that could play a role in the relationship of sleep loss and elevated glucose levels, noting that previous experiments have...