African Americans with sleep apnea are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, new research has suggested.

The study has shown that sleep apnea, when a person’s breathing stops and starts while they sleep, aggravates blood sugar levels.

If left untreated, this can lead to type 2 diabetes, a condition that is already more prevalent among the African American community. Findings suggest that black men are 1.5 times more likely than white men, and black women are two times more likely than white women, to develop type 2 diabetes.

The data was collected for the Jackson Heart Study and involved nearly 800 African American people who had undergone home sleep apnea tests.

Duration, efficiency, night-to-night variability and multiple disruptions during sleep were analysed. The sleeping patterns were divided into different groups, which were regular sleepers, individuals with mild sleep apnea, moderate sleep apnea, and severe sleep apnea.

Among the participants, 25% had type 2 diabetes, 20% reported that they took diabetes medication, and around 57% were diagnosed with sleep apnea but had not been given any treatment for the condition.

Of those who had severe sleep apnea, 14% had higher fasting blood glucose levels compared with the people who did not have sleep apnea, which was also associated with high HbA1c levels.

The people in the study who had experienced poor sleep fragmentation and varied sleep patterns they were also more likely to have increased blood glucose levels.

Among the individuals who did not have diabetes, disturbed sleep was associated with higher insulin resistance.

Lead author of the study Yuichiro Yano said: “The study underscores the importance of developing interventions to promote regular sleep schedules, particularly in those with diabetes. It also reaffirms the need to improve the screening and diagnosis of sleep apnea, both in African Americans and other groups.”

Previous research has also found that sleep patterns are linked to cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes. This latest finding has shown that focussing on good, quality sleep could help reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes among the African American community.

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Teenagers who have obesity, type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure may be more likely to have signs of premature blood vessel aging compared to teens without those health conditions, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.

Over five years, researchers evaluated 141 teens with normal weight; 156 who had obesity; and 151 who had type 2 diabetes, with an average age of 17.6 when the study began.

At the end of five years, the teens with either obesity, type 2 diabetes or high systolic blood pressure – major risk factors for heart attacks and strokes later in life – were significantly more likely to have thicker and stiffer carotid arteries, the main blood vessel that leads to the brain.

“Our study demonstrates that the slow changes in blood vessels that lead to the development of atherosclerosis begins early in life,” said lead study author Justin R. Ryder, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and associate director of research for the Center for Pediatric Obesity Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis.

Atherosclerosis is the slow narrowing of the arteries usually associated with natural aging, and it increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events.

“Having obesity, type 2 diabetes or high systolic blood pressure were each independently associated with and equally predictive of having thicker and stiffer arteries among this group of young people. What surprised our team the most was that participants with higher systolic blood pressure compared to their peers in the study had a very similar risk as those with obesity or type 2 diabetes for thicker and stiffer blood vessels over time.”

Justin R. Ryder, Study Lead Author and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics,                                                                                 American Heart Association

Carotid artery health was assessed by non-invasive ultrasound and pulse wave velocity. The ultrasound measured the thickness of the inner two layers of the blood vessel, known as carotid intima-media thickness. The pulse wave velocity gauges how fast blood flows through the vessels to determine arterial stiffness.

Both measures were taken at the beginning of the study and five years later. The analysis concluded teens with obesity, type 2 diabetes or high systolic blood pressure had greater change in the thickness and stiffness of their arteries, compared to participants in the group with normal weight. This would suggest a greater risk of early heart attacks or strokes among the teens with obesity, type 2 diabetes or high systolic blood pressure.

“Although type 2 diabetes is treated aggressively in the U.S., obesity needs to be treated just as vigorously because it has the same increased risk for premature aging of the blood vessels, which is an early sign of cardiovascular dysfunction and a precursor to cardiovascular diseases in adulthood,” according to Ryder.

Strengths of the study included its large study size of almost 150 teens in each group, for a total of 448 participants, and objective measurements of carotid artery health five years apart. A limitation of the research is that the teens will not be followed into adulthood to track if the premature aging of their blood vessels results in heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular conditions.

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