Getting consistent sleep could help stave off Type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.

A team led by investigators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed the sleep patterns of study participants over seven nights and then followed them for more than seven years. The researchers found those with the most irregular sleep patterns had a 34 percent higher chance of developing diabetes. The findings were published in Diabetes Care.

“Our study identified a modifiable lifestyle factor that can help lower the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes,” said lead author Sina Kianersi, a research fellow in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Type 2 diabetes affects close to half a billion people worldwide and is one of the top 10 leading causes of death and disability. The number of people with the disease is expected to more than double to 1.3 billion by 2050.

The new study analyzed accelerometry data from more than 84,000 participants in the U.K. Biobank Study. Participants were an average age of 62 years (57 percent female, 97 percent white) and were initially free of diabetes. They wore accelerometers — devices like watches that monitor 7½ years, tracking diabetes development mostly through medical records.

The study set out to investigate two key questions: first, to discover whether irregular sleep durations may promote diabetes development through circadian disruption and sleep disturbances; second, to explore whether this association varies across genetic predispositions to the condition.

The investigators found that more irregular sleep duration was associated with higher diabetes risk after adjusting for a wide range of risk factors. This association was more pronounced in individuals with longer sleep duration and lower polygenic risk score for the disease.

The data revealed that compared with participants with regular sleep patterns, those with irregular sleep (where day-to-day sleep duration varied by more than 60 minutes on average) had a 34 percent higher risk of developing diabetes. The risk decreased, yet persisted, even after accounting for lifestyle, co-morbidities, family history of diabetes, and obesity indicators.

There were some study limitations. Certain lifestyle information used in the research was collected up to five years before the accelerometer study began. This might have affected the accuracy of the results. Also, the assessment of sleep duration based on seven days may not capture long-term sleep patterns. Lastly, study participants were mainly healthy, older, and white, and may not represent outcomes for more diverse populations.

The researchers plan to study participants from younger age groups and with diverse racial backgrounds. They are also interested in exploring the biological reasons why sleep irregularity increases the risk of diabetes.

“Our findings have the potential to improve diabetes prevention on multiple levels,” said Kianersi. “Clinically, they might inform better patient care and treatment plans. Public health guidelines could promote regular sleep patterns. However, more research is needed to fully understand the mechanism and confirm the results in other populations.”

Authorship: In addition to Kianersi, Brigham authors include Heming Wang, Tamar Sofer, and Susan Redline. Additional authors include Raymond Noordam, Andrew Phillips, Martin K. Rutter, and Tianyi Huang (formerly at Brigham and Women’s).

Disclosures: Phillips has received research funding from Versalux and Delos, and he is a director and founder of Circadian Health Innovations PTY LTD.

Funding: This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant number R01HL155395) and the UKB project 85501. Kianersi was supported by the American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship (grant number: 24POST1188091).