Sleep Patterns Messy, Diabetes Risk Haunting

In order to fall asleep, the body needs the melatonin hormone because this hormone plays an important role in regulating a person's biological clock. Not surprisingly, a new study found low levels of melatonin may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women.

In this study, researchers compared the 370 women who develop type 2 diabetes between the years 2000 to 2012 (but not the disease in question before the study began) with 370 women who did not have diabetes at all. Each participant is asked to collect a sample of his urine in the morning to measure the levels of melatonin are produced overnight.

From there it is known that women melatoninnya low levels at night two times higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes during the study period is 12 years, compared to women with high melatoninnya.

Even the relationship between the two remained there even though researchers have considered other factors that may increase the risk of diabetes such as age, weight, level of physical activity and sleep duration.

"As far as the factors that are known to reduce levels of melatonin include sleep disorders, short sleep duration, night-shift work and consumption of certain drugs such as beta-blockers," said researcher Dr. John Forman of Brigham and Women's Hospital.

But these findings still found a number of weaknesses. Among this study only found a link between low levels of melatonin with the risk of type 2 diabetes but can not prove whether low melatonin can lead to diabetes or not.

Another disadvantage, the study involved only white woman so that researchers could not determine whether these findings can be applied to men or other races.

"... And because of this finding requires further study to ascertain the results, it is still too early to recommend supplements of melatonin to reduce the risk of diabetes in a person. Because researchers do not know for sure what the best way to produce melatonin levels 'normal' in the evening, "said another researcher Dr. Ciaran McMullan of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, as reported by MyHealthNewsDaily, Thursday (04/04/2013).

The study has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.