An unexpected bedroom tool could help stabilize blood sugar: study
There’s no sugar-coating it: More than two and five American adults have prediabetes.This condition causes higher-than-normal blood sugar levels that spike with certain foods.Without lifestyle changes, up to 70% of them will develop type 2 diabetes.But prediabetes is a warning sign, not a life sentence.
Doctors will recommend losing weight, changing their diet, and getting more exercise in to get out of the prediabetic blood sugar zone.New research says another tool could help manage prediabetes — while you sleep.Sleeping with air purifiers stabilized blood sugar levels in people with prediabetes during the day, researchers at NYU Langone found.Here’s how what’s in your air affects your blood.Foods like grains and sugars break down into glucose which goes into the bloodstream.In response, the pancreas makes insulin to move the glucose into cells for energy.In people with prediabetes, insulin production struggles to keep up with the blood sugar, causing dramatic blood sugar spikes.
Over time, those spikes put increased demand on the pancreas, decreasing its function, making the condition worse — potentially leading to type 2 diabetes.Research has been growing on the link between air pollution and diabetes.Experts believe that microscopic pieces of dust, dirt, smoke and soot enter the lungs and get into the bloodstream.This can contribute to everything from heart disease to stroke, cancer, and kidney disease.
But in diabetes, they believe it’s triggering inflammation that damages cells, disrupting how they respond to insulin.A 2024 study on mice suggests that air pollution creates inflammation in the brain, either directly or from inflammation in the lungs.The brain’s immune system reacts, and disrupts insulin signaling in the hypothalamus.For the first time in humans, researchers tested whether high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters could control the blood sugar spikes that make prediabetes worse.They had half the participants sleep with rea...