Continuous glucose monitors help connect the dots between sleep health and diabetes care

Quality sleep plays an important role in a person’s whole health. Over time, inconsistent sleep quality and broken sleep patterns, that result from conditions like sleep apnea, can compound and impact a person’s health.

“Poor sleep quality, including fragmentation, low sleep efficiency and frequent awakenings, strongly correlates with more variable glucose overnight,” says Shannon Oates, MD, FACE, Endocrinology - Lafayette associate director, chief medical information officer. “Any drop in oxygen during sleep, as occurs in obstructive sleep apnea, causes insulin resistance and higher blood sugars. Poor sleep can lead to insulin resistance.”

Over time, this resistance to insulin can lead to the development of diabetes – a chronic condition that develops when the body cannot properly use blood sugar, or glucose, which leads to high blood sugar levels.

“Patients with sleep apnea have high rates of undiagnosed diabetes. In this study, 66% of patients had diabetes or glucose intolerance and 28% were newly diagnosed with sleep apnea,” says Oates.

As people with diabetes manage their sleep health and whole health, blood sugar monitoring is key, especially overnight. Hyperglycemia, or high blood sugar, and hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, can lead to serious health complications. Maintaining a healthy blood sugar is critical to the health of a person with diabetes, and a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) can help. It is a wearable, blood glucose tracking device that uses a small sensor placed under a patient’s skin to continuously track blood glucose levels.

“Before CGMs, the hours between 11 pm and 7 am were essentially a ‘black box’ for people with diabetes,” says Oates. “You’d prick your finger and test your levels before bed and again in the morning, but had no idea what your levels were overnight. A CGM changes the game by providing a movie about your blood sugar levels instead of just a snapshot.”

The CGM team guides patients through every step of the process with the device. Prompt and consistent communications come directly from experienced team members, not call centers, and the high-quality, industry-leading CGM devices and related supplies are sent directly to front doors based on insurance coverage. The CGM team also works closely with IU Health providers and certified diabetes educators for a seamless experience in a patient’s diabetes management.

“If sleep is broken, it’s likely that a patient’s overnight CGM curves will be more erratic,” says Oates. “This information is helpful and important for managing the early morning glucose rise known as ‘dawn phenomenon’ and avoiding early morning hyperglycemia. Wearing a CGM gives the patient and their care team lots of data about glucose variability and helps the person with diabetes see their patterns all day and all night.”

Learn more about continuous glucose monitor (CGM) options and care.