The Study on Daytime Sleepy

The researchers took a look at ten previous studies that covered the participation from more than one quarter a million people. The participants answered questionnaires on their propensity to feel sleepy during the daytime hours, without a proper cause like having an infant in the home that interrupted nighttime sleeping patterns.

The results

The results of the compiled data show that excessive daytime sleepiness was prevalent in people who were more likely to develop Type II diabetes than in people who did not develop Type II diabetes later in life.

The researchers concluded that people who were excessively sleepy during the daytime hours were fifty six times more likely to develop Type II diabetes later in life. The researchers did not clearly define what excessive sleepiness during the daytime was. The questionnaires simply allowed the participants to check that they were excessively sleepy in the daytime according to their own determinations of what constituted excessive sleepiness.

The researchers did discover that individuals who reported that they frequently took a nap during the day that lasted one hour or more in duration were forty six times more likely to develop diabetes later in life.

The participants who reported that they took daytime naps that lasted less than one hour did not show any prevalence in being more prone to diabetes later in life.

What this means

Doctors and medical professionals can begin to evaluate their patients for their risk of developing diabetes by including the questions about the patients daytime sleep habits, and the amount of daytime drowsiness they have. This could allow doctors to prepare their patients for the possibility of increased risks for diabetes.

Type II diabetes can often be kept under control with proper diet and exercise programs. If individuals know ahead of time that they are more likely to have this form of diabetes, then they can begin to implement the dietary restrictions and exercise regimens they will need to prevent, or control Type II diabetes.

If your doctor has not asked you about your daytime sleep habits, then you might want to consider bringing the subject up at your next physical. Doctors are human and they often get busy, or forget to ask all of the pertinent questions. It is your responsibility as a patient to help manage your own health concerns by bringing up subjects like the sleep study.

More information is needed

This study does not indicate that everyone that takes a nap during the day will be diabetic in a few years. It is a preliminary study that can be used as a guideline tool, or marker, to help people understand their risks of developing diabetes.

More in depth studies will need to be done so that the connections between drowsiness during the daytime, and diabetes, can be better understood and the cause and effect can be examined.