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OBJECTIVE: Acutely restricting sleep worsens insulin sensitivity in healthy individuals whose usual sleep is normal in duration and pattern. The effect of recovery or weekend 'catch-up' sleep on insulin sensitivity and metabolically active hormones in individuals with chronic sleep restriction who regularly 'catch-up' on sleep at weekends is as yet unstudied. DESIGN: 19 men (mean ± SEM age 28·6 ± 2·0 years, BMI 26·0 ± 0·8 kg/m(2) ) with at least 6 months' history (5·1 ± 0·9 years) of lifestyle-driven, restricted sleep during the working week (373 ± 6·6 min/night) with regular weekend 'catch-up' sleep (weekend sleep extension 37·4 ± 2·3%) completed an in-laboratory, randomized, crossover study comprising two of three conditions, stratified by age. Conditions were 3 weekend nights of 10 hours, 6 hours or 10 hours time-in-bed with slow wave sleep (SWS) suppression using targeted acoustic stimuli. MEASUREMENTS: Insulin sensitivity was measured in the morning following the 3rd intervention night by minimal modelling of 19 samples collected during a 2-h oral glucose tolerance test. Glucose, insulin, c-peptide, leptin, peptide YY (PYY), ghrelin, cortisol, testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH) were measured from daily fasting blood samples; HOMA-IR, HOMA-β and QUICKI were calculated. RESULTS: Insulin sensitivity was higher following three nights of sleep extension compared to sustained sleep restriction. Fasting insulin, c-peptide, HOMA-IR, HOMA-β, leptin and PYY decreased with 'catch-up' sleep, QUICKI and testosterone increased, while morning cortisol and LH did not change. Targeted acoustic stimuli reduced SWS by 23%, but did not alter insulin sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS: Three nights of 'catch-up' sleep improved insulin sensitivity in men with chronic, repetitive sleep restriction. Methods to improve metabolic health by optimizing sleep are plausible.
Killick et al. (Sat,) studied this question.