Young children may be more apt to have high blood sugar, a precursor to diabetes, if they average 8 hours or less of sleep a night. This risk may be even greater among obese youngsters.
Shorter sleep seemed to influence blood sugar independently of a large variety of risk factors, including age, gender, birth-related influences, early life feeding or later diet, recent illness, physical activity, body mass, and waist girth.
The researchers investigated sleep duration and blood sugar levels in more than 1,200 children who were 3 to 6 years old and free of diabetes or blood sugar problems.