Late night waking increases risk of Diabetes, heart diseases

The researchers found increasing evidence emerging from studies linking conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes to people with the evening chronotype.

People going to bed later tend to have unhealthier diets consuming more alcohol, sugars, fast food and caffeinated drinks than early risers. They have more erratic eating patterns as they miss breakfast and eat later in the day. Their diet contains fewer vegetables, rye, and grains and they eat fewer but larger meals. They also report higher levels of consumption of caffeinated beverages, sugar, and snacks, than those with a morning preference, who eat slightly more fruit and vegetables per day. This potentially explains why night owls have a higher risk of suffering from chronic disease.

Eating late in the day was also found to be linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes because the circadian rhythm influences the way glucose is metabolized in the body.

Glucose levels should naturally decline throughout the day and reach their lowest point at night. However, as night owls often eat shortly before bed, their glucose levels are increased when they are about to sleep. This could negatively affect metabolism as their body isn't following its normal biological process.

Also Read: Just ONE high-fat meal can precipitate heart attack

One study showed that people with an evening preference were 2.5 times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than those with a morning preference.

This also impacts on people who work shifts -- particularly rotating shifts -- as they are constantly adjusting their body clock to fit with their working hours. The researchers found that this reduces their sensitivity to insulin and affects their glucose tolerance, putting them at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Interesting Findings of the Review:

• Ethnicity and society can also influence your chronotype. For example, studies have revealed that Germans are more likely to have an evening preference in comparison to Indians and Slovakians. There can also be differences between people living in urban and rural areas in the same country.


• People's preferences to rising early and going to bed later change at varying points in the life cycle. The morning chronotype is more common in children and can appear when a baby is just three-weeks-old. This changes during childhood. While over 90% of two-year-olds have a morning preference, this declines to 58% by the age of six and shifts further towards an evening preference during puberty. This evening preference continues until an adult reaches their early 50's and they then begin to revert back to a morning preference.


• Ethnicity and society can also influence your chronotype. For example, studies have revealed that Germans are more likely to have an evening preference in comparison to Indians and Slovakians. There can also be differences between people living in urban and rural areas in the same country.


• Another study noted that being exposed to daylight influenced sleep. Every additional hour spent outdoors was associated with 30 minutes of 'advance sleep' and that the noise, ambient lighting, and crowding of urban environments can make people in some areas more likely to have a morning or evening preference.


• The researchers also found evidence that night owls would accumulate 'sleep debt' during the working week and would sleep longer at weekends to compensate for this, whereas early birds had smaller differences in their sleeping patterns across the week also find that evening chronotype is related to more erratic eating behavior and poorer diet. This could have important implications for health in adulthood as most dietary habits are established in adolescence."

"Further research on the best methods to assess an individual's chronotype and how this may affect their long-term cardiometabolic health can potentially guide the development of health promotion strategies aimed at preventing and treating chronic diseases based on an individual's chronotype," concluded the authors.

For further reference follow the link: https://doi.org/10.1093/advances/nmy070