When you received your Type 2 diabetes diagnosis, you heard: exercise, diet, testing blood sugar levels... and, of all things sleep! These all affect your blood sugar levels. I would say you did not expect to hear about sleep loss as playing a part in Type 2 diabetes, but it has a strong impact on your health.
Sleep, or lack of it, is important because it touches on so many aspects of diabetes management. Lack of sleep can not only sap your energy and motivation to stick with the program, but can affect your hormones, actually promoting insulin resistance, obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
When Type 2 diabetics can't get enough sound sleep, blood sugar control suffers and complications loom large. Scientists at Baylor University in Texas tell us that taking the kind of cinnamon known as Cinnamomum cassia might just help reverse the effects of sleep deprivation.
Not getting enough rest is a problem for Type 2 diabetics on several levels. Without six hours slumber, the brain does not have time to respond to the appetite-regulating hormone adiponectin. Produced by the fat (adipose) cells themselves, this important protein tells the brain you have eaten enough; and your liver that you don't need the release of sugar. You have to get your shut-eye for your body to respond to this hormone properly.
Another issue with insomnia for people with Type 2 diabetes is that it also deprives the body of opportunities to process the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin. When your body doesn't recycle this substance, your nerve endings are more sensitive to pain until you find something to eat. Too much ghrelin makes managing diabetes and losing weight more difficult... grelin is a hormone that stimulates hunger.
The scientists at Baylor found that some as yet unidentified compound in cinnamon compensates for both of these effects. It modifies signaling proteins so that cells respond to insulin better. The pancreas does not have to make as much insulin, and there is not as much insulin in the circulation to do its other job, storing fat. Taking cinnamon seems to reverse the detrimental effects of stress and insomnia.
It's not every kind of cinnamon that has this effect, however. The type of the spice that gets sprinkled on oatmeal and baked into rolls, cookies, crisps, and snaps is not the kind that has the beneficial effect.
If you already have Type 2 diabetes, having enough shut-eye is even more important because sleep also appears to control the hormones that regulate blood sugar, and losing out on sleep can contribute to elevated HbA1c percentages.
No comments:
Post a Comment