Sleep Duration and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes: A Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies

It remains unclear how many hours of sleep are associated with the lowest risk of type 2 diabetes. This meta-analysis was performed to assess the dose-response relationship between sleep duration and risk of type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: PubMed and Embase were searched up to 20 March 2014 for prospective observational studies that assessed the relationship of sleep duration and risk of type 2 diabetes. Both semiparametric and parametric methods were used.

Ten articles with 11 reports were eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. A total of 18,443 incident cases of type 2 diabetes were ascertained among 482,502 participants with follow-up periods ranging from 2.5 to 16 years. A U-shaped dose-response relationship was observed between sleep duration and risk of type 2 diabetes, with the lowest risk observed at a sleep duration category of 7-8 h per day. Compared with 7-h sleep duration per day, the pooled relative risks for type 2 diabetes were 1.09 (95% CI 1.04-1.15) for each 1-h shorter sleep duration among individuals who slept