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Research shows that sleep is linked with sugar.

Middle-aged or older women who are habituatd to six hours or less sleep every night, or extra two hours above the normal, could develop type-2 diabetes.

In a research conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Cespedes from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her team, 59,031 women from 55 to 83 years were examined and analysed, through 14-year data documenting participants' sleep cycles, diet, physical, activity and related factors at intervals of two to four years.

Narrowing their analyses on 3,500 women diagnosed with type-2 diabetes between 2000 and 2012, scientists used a computer model to calculate the diabetes risk of participants, based on their sleep patterns.

There were two kinds of results. Those who slept for six hours or less stood a 15 percent greater risk of developing type-2 diabetes. Women who overslept by at least two hours stood a 21 percent greater risk.

"Chronic short sleep duration and increases in sleep duration are associated with increased risk of diabetes. Decreases in sleep duration have modest, adverse associations with diet quality and physical activity, while increases in sleep duration have modest, adverse associations with weight gain. Ongoing trials will provide further insight as to whether changes in sleep duration influence energy balance," the authors noted.

However, this is not a "cause-and-effect connection between sleep pattern and type-2 diabetes, but rather an association", according to HNGN.

"Some scientists argue that long sleep is a symptom of underlying sleep disorders, depression or ill health, and that it is these factors, and not long sleep, that increase the risk of diabetes," Cespedes said.

The study was published in the Nov. 2 issue of the journal Diabetologia.