Fan of long afternoon naps? You could actually have diabetes

There is nothing better than snuggling under the duvet for a quick, sneaky nap at 3pm – the warmth, the comfort, the sheer magical bliss. 

However, a new study has found that if you tend to nap for longer than an hour a day it could be a sign that you have Type 2 diabetes.

The research conducted by the University of Tokyo, which will be presented to the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), looked at data from 21 studies of more than 300,000 people.

And it was here they found an association between daytime snoozing and Type 2 diabetes.

According to the results of the study, not only does sleep deprivation lead to increased appetite which in turn can increase the risk of this type of diabetes, people who are in the early stages of the illness are more likely to nap for longer during the day.

"It's likely that risk factors which lead to diabetes also cause napping. This could include slightly high sugar levels, meaning napping may be an early warning sign of diabetes," Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, told the BBC.

"In general, it is not possible to make conclusions about cause and effect based on observational studies alone, because usually they cannot rule out alternative explanations for their findings."