How What You Eat May Be Closely Connected to How Well You Sleep
Getting enough sleep sounds simple, but for millions of people, it’s anything but. Health experts, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recommend that adults get at least seven hours of sleep every night. Yet an estimated 50 to 70 million Americans live with sleep disorders such as insomnia or sleep apnea, conditions that make quality rest difficult to achieve. New research suggests that diet and blood sugar levels may play a bigger role in sleep health than many people realize.
A recent study led by Raedeh Basiri, a registered dietitian and clinical nutrition researcher at George Mason University, takes a closer look at how eating patterns, blood glucose levels, and metabolic health are linked to sleep quality and duration. The findings add to growing evidence that sleep and nutrition are deeply interconnected, and that what happens on our plates during the day may influence what happens in our beds at night.
The research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Nutrition and analyzed a large body of national health data collected over more than a decade.
Understanding the Scope of the Study
Basiri’s study examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) spanning 2007 to 2020. NHANES is a long-running, nationally representative survey that collects detailed information on diet, health conditions, laboratory measurements, and lifestyle behaviors among U.S. adults.
Using this dataset, the research team explored how glycemic status—meaning whether someone has normal blood sugar, prediabetes, or diabetes—interacts with macronutrient intake (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) to influence sleep outcomes. These outcomes included sleep duration, trouble falling or staying asleep, and the presence of diagnosed sleep disorders.
Because the data is observational, the study does not prove cause and effect. However, it does reveal strong associations that help clarify how metabolic health and dietary patterns relate to sleep in real-world populations.
Diabetes and Sleep Problems Go Hand in Hand
One of the clearest findings was the strong connection between diabetes and disrupted sleep. Adults with diabetes were significantly more likely to report trouble sleeping, to be diagnosed with sleep disorders, and to experience abnormal sleep durations compared to individuals with normal blood sugar levels.
These abnormal sleep patterns included both short sleep and long sleep, suggesting that diabetes may affect not only how well people sleep but also how long they sleep. People with prediabetes showed similar trends, although the associations were generally weaker than those seen in individuals with full-diagnosis diabetes.
This matters because both short and excessively long sleep durations have been linked in other studies to higher risks of cardiovascular disease, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction. The findings highlight that sleep challenges may begin even before diabetes is fully diagnosed, during the prediabetic stage.
Blood Sugar Control Isn’t the Whole Story
Another interesting and somewhat surprising finding involved diabetes management. Participants with diabetes who maintained strict blood sugar control were more likely to report sleep difficulties than those with less tightly controlled glucose levels.
This suggests that achieving ideal blood sugar numbers does not automatically guarantee better sleep. Factors such as nighttime blood sugar fluctuations, fear of hypoglycemia, medication timing, or dietary restrictions may contribute to disrupted sleep, even when overall diabetes control appears good.
In other words, sleep health and metabolic control do not always move in perfect alignment, and addressing one without considering the other may leave important gaps in care.
Protein, Fat, and Carbs All Play a Role
Beyond blood sugar status, the study also looked closely at macronutrient intake, and the results show that the balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrates matters for sleep across all groups.
One of the strongest patterns observed involved low-protein diets. Diets low in protein—especially when combined with high fat intake—were consistently linked to poorer sleep outcomes, regardless of whether participants had diabetes, prediabetes, or normal blood sugar.
Low protein intake has been associated in other research with changes in hormones that regulate appetite, metabolism, and circadian rhythms, which may help explain its connection to sleep disturbances.
On the other hand, low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets showed a different pattern. These diets were associated with a lower likelihood of short sleep duration in both people with diabetes and those without blood sugar abnormalities. While this does not mean such diets are ideal for everyone, it highlights how different macronutrient combinations may influence sleep length in distinct ways.
Extended Sleep and Metabolic Health
The study also found notable links between diet, glycemic status, and extended sleep duration, particularly among people with prediabetes. In this group, low-protein and high-fat dietary patterns were associated with a significantly higher likelihood of sleeping longer than recommended.
Extended sleep is often overlooked in sleep research, but it can be a sign of underlying metabolic or inflammatory issues, fatigue, or poor sleep quality that leads people to spend more time in bed without necessarily feeling rested.
These findings suggest that both too little and too much sleep may be connected to dietary patterns and early metabolic dysfunction.
Why Sleep and Blood Sugar Are So Closely Linked
Sleep and glucose regulation are deeply interconnected. Poor sleep can reduce insulin sensitivity, increase stress hormones like cortisol, and disrupt appetite-regulating hormones such as leptin and ghrelin. Over time, these changes can worsen blood sugar control and increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
At the same time, unstable blood sugar levels can interfere with sleep by causing nighttime awakenings, increased urination, headaches, or discomfort. This creates a bidirectional cycle, where poor sleep and poor metabolic health reinforce each other.
Basiri’s research reinforces the idea that improving sleep may require looking beyond bedtime routines and considering diet quality and metabolic stability as well.
What This Means for Everyday Health
Taken together, the findings suggest that strategies to improve sleep should not focus solely on sleep hygiene, such as limiting screen time or maintaining a consistent bedtime. While those habits matter, dietary patterns and blood sugar regulation also deserve attention.
For people with diabetes or prediabetes, this research highlights the importance of addressing sleep as part of comprehensive metabolic care. For the general population, it underscores the value of balanced nutrition—including adequate protein intake—in supporting healthy sleep.
It also suggests that extreme or unbalanced diets may have unintended effects on sleep, even if they appear beneficial for weight or glucose control in the short term.
A Growing Area of Research
This study adds to a growing body of evidence showing that nutrition and sleep are not separate health domains, but deeply intertwined systems. Future research may help clarify which dietary patterns best support sleep quality across different metabolic conditions and how personalized nutrition approaches could be used to improve both sleep and metabolic health.
For now, the takeaway is clear: how you eat during the day may have a meaningful impact on how well you sleep at night, and paying attention to both could lead to better overall health.
Research paper:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2025.1672631/full
