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This Is The Amount Of Sleep You Actually Need To Stay Healthy

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[Photo: Getty]

We’re constantly bombarded with information about how to optimise our sleep and why we should avoid having too little or, God forbid, too much.

But now a new study has taken a different tack on this much-researched topic. VU University Medical Centre in the Netherlands has been examining links between how long we sleep for, insulin sensitivity and the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Researchers concluded that seven hours of deep sleep was the optimum for maintaining healthy glucose levels and insulin production.

Stable levels of glucose are key to controlling our weight.

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[Photo: Getty]

Unfortunately for those of us with busy work schedules (or heavy weekend plans), sleeping less than seven hours has been shown to mess with your glucose metabolism. This can cause weight gain and even the early onset of diabetes.

A report by the Royal Society For Public Health found that Brits are just missing out on the seven hour mark and are instead averaging 6.8 hours sleep per night.

More than 3.9 million people in the UK have diabetes, more than treble the amount there were in 1996.

Here are some tips on how to get a good night’s kip. Don’t say we never do anything for you.

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