How blood sugar patterns shape sleep quality

Millions of adults struggle with restless nights, and new research suggests their dinner plates may be part of the problem.

Using national survey data from nearly 40,000 Americans, scientists linked blood sugar patterns, eating habits, and sleep quality.

Adults living with diabetes were more likely to report sleep problems and abnormal sleep duration than those with typical blood sugar.

Low-protein eating patterns, especially when combined with high-fat intake, were strongly tied to restless or irregular sleep.

Food and sleep science

The work was led by Dr. Raedeh Basiri at George Mason University (GMU), a public research university in Fairfax, Virginia.

Her research centers on personalized nutrition strategies that improve outcomes for people with prediabetes, diabetes, and related metabolic conditions.

That work brings sleep science, nutrition counseling, and metabolic care together, instead of treating them as separate clinical issues.

Dr. Basiri’s team asked whether different blood sugar profiles were linked to specific sleep problems across the general population.

The researchers also wanted to know whether the balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in daily diets might help explain those patterns.

Sleep, diet, and blood sugar

To answer those questions, the researchers turned to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).

This federal program combines health exams, laboratory testing, and detailed interviews to track Americans’ nutrition and disease risks.

For this project, the team studied adults with complete sleep reports, diet recalls, and hemoglobin A1c – a blood test that measures typical glucose.

After strict quality checks, the experts published an analysis based on 39,794 adults and representing millions of people across the United States.

Linking blood sugar and sleep quality

Among adults, those with diabetes had higher odds of short sleep, long sleep, and diagnosed sleep disorders than people with normal blood sugar.

They were also more likely to report general trouble sleeping, even after accounting for age, weight, activity level, and race.

People with prediabetes showed a smaller but noticeable increase in sleep problems – especially trouble sleeping – compared with adults who had normal blood sugar.

Taken together, the results point to a tight connection between blood sugar dysregulation and the quantity and quality of nightly sleep.

Low protein diets 

The team then examined macronutrient patterns, looking at how much energy people received from carbohydrates, proteins, and fats in their usual diets.

They defined a balanced eating pattern as staying within widely accepted ranges for each macronutrient, then compared every other pattern with that group.

Across blood sugar groups, low protein intake kept appearing as a warning signal, linked with sleep disorders and abnormal sleep durations.

Among adults with diabetes, those eating very little protein had more than double the odds of receiving a diagnosed sleep disorder.

Diet patterns can stabilize sleep

Not every macronutrient pattern looked harmful, and one combination showed hints of protection in this analysis.

People whose diets were low in carbohydrates but high in fat were less likely to report short sleep than balanced eaters with diabetes.

A similar pattern seemed to hold in adults with normal blood sugar, suggesting carbohydrate restriction might reduce the chances of very short sleep.

These findings fit with emerging ideas that lower-glycemic-load eating plans can stabilize overnight blood sugar swings that might otherwise fragment sleep.

Blood sugar control, yet worse sleep

One surprising result came from comparing adults with diabetes who had different levels of hemoglobin A1c.

Those whose A1c values fell below 6.5 percent, often considered tight control, had higher odds of reporting trouble sleeping than those in range.

The pattern raises questions about whether aggressive treatment plans, nighttime hypoglycemia, or medication side effects might disturb sleep even as glucose markers improve.

Basiri’s group lacked detailed medication and mental health information, and the cross-sectional design cannot fully separate those explanations.

Additional sleep and diabetes research

The results match prior work showing that inadequate sleep increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even among people who eat well.

In a cohort study, researchers following over 240,000 adults found that sleeping five hours or less raised diabetes risk despite healthy diets.

Other reviews highlight a bidirectional relationship, where poor sleep worsens insulin resistance while elevated blood glucose can disrupt sleep architecture.

Taken together, this growing evidence suggests that sleep and metabolic health reinforce one another rather than acting as separate lifestyle issues.

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.

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