MONDAY, May 10 (HealthDay News) -- A single night of little sleep can cause metabolic abnormalities including insulin resistance, according to research published online April 6 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Esther Donga, M.D., of the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues conducted a study of nine healthy subjects to evaluate the effect of partial sleep restriction, as compared to no sleep restriction, on insulin sensitivity. The subjects were evaluated once after a night of 8.5 hours of sleep and once after a night of four hours of sleep.

After a night of sleep deprivation, the researchers found that basal glucose, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), insulin, and endogenous glucose production were unaffected; however, there was increased endogenous glucose production during a hyperinsulinemic clamp study compared to that measured after a night of unrestricted sleep, indicating hepatic insulin resistance. The clamp study also showed that sleep restriction resulted in decreased peripheral insulin sensitivity. NEFA levels increased during the clamp study.

"What are the implications of the present observations? Sleep duration has shortened considerably in western societies in the past decades. Simultaneously, there has been an increase in the prevalence of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The current and other studies indicate that shortened sleep duration is a factor that contributes to glucose intolerance and, even after a single night, to insulin resistance," the authors write.

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