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People who sleep too much or not enough are at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance, according to researchers at Universie Laval’s Faculty of Medicine.

The risk is 2 times higher for people who sleep less than 7 hours or more than 8 hours a night. The findings were published recently on the website of the journal Sleep Medicine.

To reach the conclusion, researchers analysed the life habits of 276 subjects over a 6-year period.

They determined that over the timespan, estimates  20% of those with long and short sleep duration developed type 2 diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance versus only 7% among subjects who were average duration sleepers.

Even after taking into account the effect attributable to differences in body mass among the subjects, the risk of diabetes and insulin resistance was still twice as high among those with longer and shorter sleep duration than average sleepers.

The researchers also point out that diabetes is not the only risk associated with sleep duration. A growing number of studies have shed light on a similar relationship between sleep and obesity, cardiovascular disease, and overall mortality.

 They observe that among adults, between 7 and 8 hours of nighttime sleep appears to be the optimum duration to protect against common diseases and premature death

On average, most adults need seven to eight hours of sleep each night to feel alert and well-rested. Adolescents should sleep about nine hours a night, school-aged children between 10-11 hours a night and children in pre-school between 11-13 hours a night.