By taking a daily supplement containing melatonin,
people could help protect themselves against the devastating condition,
they believe.
The supplement is already available on prescription to treat insomnia.
Researchers
from a Boston hospital found that women with low levels of melatonin in
their body were more than twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes as
those with high levels.
Melatonin is produced
naturally in the body by the pineal gland, a pea-shaped organ inside the
brain that is sensitive to light. When it gets dark, the hormone is
released, as the body’s signal that it is time to fall asleep.
Dr
Ciaran McMullan and colleagues at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital said
previous studies have suggested that melatonin may play a role in
maintaining healthy blood sugar levels by helping to metabolise glucose.
They took blood and urine samples from hundreds of women in 2000. Of these, 370 had developed Type 2 diabetes by last year.
The
research team found that there were twice as many cases among those
with the lowest melatonin levels even when factors such as family
history of diabetes and high blood pressure were taken into account.
In
their research, published in The Journal of the American Medical
Association, the team wrote that melatonin receptors have been found
throughout the body including in pancreatic cells.
This
reflected “the widespread effects of melatonin on physiological
functions such as energy metabolism and the regulation of body weight”,
they said.
However, mutations in the receptors were associated with lowering sensitivity to insulin and Type 2 diabetes.
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