Hit The Snooze Button To Live Longer

Hit The Snooze Button To Live Longer

By Michael Roizen, M.D., and Mehmet Oz, M.D.
Brunch at 10? Make it 11.
As if not having circles
under your eyes wasn't a compelling enough reason to get enough sleep, here's
another biggie: You'll be less likely to age from diabetes, the
makes-you-sick-and-tired disease that affects more than 24 million Americans and
2 million Canadians.
While more than 80 million
of us in North America have the genes for type 2 diabetes, very few of us have
to express them, if we do the right things.

When researchers let people
sleep just 5.5 hours a night for two weeks, they saw that the sleep-deprived
folks had started to develop diabetes; they had increased insulin resistance and
reduced glucose tolerance.

What does that mean?
Basically, your body has
mailmen that take energy from food and place it inside the mailbox in your
cells.
But with diabetes or
insulin resistance, those mailmen can't get the mail inside.
So glucose, like a posse of
bored teenagers, hangs out in your bloodstream and causes all kinds of trouble.

That's dangerous to your
arteries, your brain, your immune system and your kidneys.

Previous
research saw the risk for developing diabetes go up with far less sleep, but
these scientists decided to test a more realistic scenario of just 5.5 hours
(sound familiar?).

Too busy to get to bed earlier?
No, you're not; especially
since your life depends on it!
Try inching up your bedtime
by 10 little minutes a night.
By this time next week, you
may have dropped your risk of aging from diabetes.
********
The YOU Docs, Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen, are authors of "YOU: The
Owner's Manual." Want more? See "The Dr. Oz Show" on TV starting Sept. 14 (check
local listings). To submit questions, go to www.RealAge.com. (c) 2009 Michael
Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D. Distributed by King Features Syndicate,
Inc.