Are you suffering from diabetes? Even if you are not, ask yourself just one question: Do you have problems sleeping well at night most of the time? If your answer is yes, I have bad news for you! This is because studies have shown that just three nights of bad sleep is more then enough to wreck havoc in your body by reducing your body's ability to regulate blood glucose levels and directly raising the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

According to researchers at the University of Chicago medical school, There are more than 18 million Americans suffering from diabetes and the most common form is type 2 -- in which the body either becomes resistant to insulin or does not produce enough insulin to process sugar in their bloodstream.

Having bad sleep quality for three nights in a row greatly lower this glucose tolerance of young or even healthy adults as much as if they had gained eight to 13 kilos (20 to 30 pounds). Wow !!

While it is possible that the body's ability to regulate glucose would adjust to counter chronic sleep deprivation, it is likely that poor sleep patterns in the elderly as well as the obese play a major role in the development of diabetes.

In the study, nine lean, fit and healthy participants between the age of 20 to 31 spent a total of five nights in the laboratory so that their sleep patterns could be monitored. Whenever the volunteers went into slow-wave sleep, the researchers will start to make some noises to disrupt their sleep but not to fully awaken them.

The sounds reduced deep sleep by about 90% by shifting them out of the onset of deep sleep back into a lighter sleep. In this way, the typical sleeping patterns of those over the age of 60 were mimicked because people in this age group tends to get only about 20 minutes of deep sleep a night compared to about 80 to 100 minutes for most young adults.

After just three days, the ability of the volunteers to regulate blood sugar was reduced by 25% which is an indication that they needed more insulin to dispose the same amount of glucose in their bodies.

Earlier studies have indicated that lack of sleep can reduce the ability to regulate sugar, and this report adds evidence that poor sleep quality is also a diabetes risk.

This report is a warning to anyone (not only for diabetes sufferers) not to take their sleep lightly and if you are constantly having bad sleep or feeling tired when you wake up in the morning, do make an effort to understand the root cause and to improve your sleep either by yourself or through the help of a doctor or specialist. Once you have diabetes, you will not be able to "shake it off" easily so prevention is the key to a diabetic free life-style.