A Prospective Study of Self-Reported Sleep Duration and Incident Diabetes in Women

Short-term sleep restriction results in impaired glucose tolerance. To test whether habitually short sleep duration increases the risk of developing diabetes, we studied a cohort of 70,026 women enrolled in the Nurses Health Study, without diabetes at baseline, and who responded to a question about daily sleep duration in 1986. Subjects were followed until 1996 for the diagnosis of diabetes (1,969 cases). Long and short sleep durations were associated with an increased risk of diabetes diagnosis. The relative risks (RRs) for short (slept or =9 h per day) sleepers were 1.57 (95% CI 1.28-1.92) and 1.47 (1.19-1.80), respectively. After adjustment for BMI and a variety of confounders, the RR was not significantly…