Here’s an easy and very welcome way to lower your risk of diabetes: just sleep more.

More accurately, make sure to get just the right amount of good quality sleep.

At least that’s what a study published in the journal Diabetes Care found was the case for obese teenagers, and what’s true for those kids is very likely also true for other people as well, including even healthy adults.

In this study, researchers looked at 62 obese teenagers (average age 14) and they found that both “insufficient” and “excessive” sleep were linked to abnormal blood glucose levels (and too little sleep was also linked to abnormal insulin levels).

Why?

Probably because proper sleep helps regulate hormonal function, and one of the most important hormones, of course, is insulin.

That’s also why some experts believe that our obesity epidemic is partly a function of the lack of adequate sleep we are all suffering from these days.

Bottom line: good quality sleep is very important for good health (not just for weight control) so don’t cheat on your sleep.