Sleeping badly or working night shifts could be making you fat, weak and more likely to become diabetic.

睡眠质量不佳，经常加夜班会造成肥胖、体弱，还更容易让人患糖尿病。

A study has revealed short or restless slumber¹ changes the way people's DNA² works and makes the body more dedicated³ to storing fat.

最近一项研究表明，睡眠不足会改变人们的基因，更容易使人发胖。

Muscles get smaller and fat stores begin to rise when people lose as little as one night's sleep, the experts found.

专家们发现，仅仅一个晚上的低质量睡眠就会造成肌肉萎缩，以及脂肪囤积。

Although midnight snacks or being too tired to exercise could be blamed for tired people getting fatter, there may now be a more scientific reason.

尽管宵夜和缺乏运动也可看作是人们增肥的主要原因，但现在又多了一项科学解释。

Researchers have linked losing sleep to weight gain in the past but have found it difficult to explain – now they reveal it could be linked to the body clock.

之前已有研究将缺觉和体重增加联系起来，但对于这种现象仍旧缺乏合理解释——如今他们认为这和人体的生物钟有关。

And a tired body also becomes less able to handle sugar in the blood which raises the risk of someone developing type 2 diabetes⁴.

身体在疲惫时处理血糖的能力也会随之下降，增加患上二型糖尿病的风险。

Sleep researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden did a study on 15 people who they tested after a full night's sleep and after a sleepless⁵ night.

位于瑞典的乌普萨拉大学对15名受试者进行了研究，他们对被试者们睡眠充足和睡眠不足之后的状况分别进行了测试。

They took fat and muscle tissue samples and collected blood from the healthy weight participants and found the way their DNA works had changed.

研究人员提取了被试者血液中的脂肪和肌肉组织样本，他们发现DNA的运作方式发生了变化。

The researchers say their findings are important because high levels of body fat increase the risk of the world's biggest causes of death: cancer, heart disease and stroke.

研究者们称这项研究之所以重要是因为肥胖会导致癌症、心脏病以及中风——这三者是世界上死亡率最高的疾病。

People's sensitivity to blood sugar is also dampened when they're tired, the study found, which suggests those who don't sleep well are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes.

研究发现，人们在疲劳时对血糖的敏感度会减少，表明睡眠质量不佳的人更易患上二型糖尿病。

'We saw that the [fatty] tissue is attempting to increase its capacity to store fat following sleep loss,' said Dr Cedernaes,'Whereas we observed signs of breakdown⁶ of skeletal muscle.We also noted⁷ changes in levels of proteins involved handling blood glucose⁸, and this could help explain why the participants' glucose sensitivity was impaired⁹ following sleep loss.'

Cedernaes教授说：“我们发现睡眠缺乏后脂肪组织存储脂肪的能力会增加，而骨骼肌肉则有分解的趋势。我们还发现蛋白质合成血糖的程度有所下降，这也是受试者在缺觉后葡萄糖敏感性下降的原因。

'Taken together, these observations may provide at least partial insight as to why chronic¹⁰ sleep loss and shift work can increase the risk of adverse¹¹ weight gain as well as the risk of type 2 diabetes.'

他说：“总而言之，这些发现至少为慢性失眠及长期倒班会导致体重增加和二型糖尿病这一研究提供了论据。”

The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.

这一发现已刊于《走进科学》。