Insomnia and Cardiometabolic Health: Bridging the Gap Between Sleep Deficit and Disease Prevention

Insomnia is a condition characterized by difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep, or experiencing early morning awakenings despite having a sufficient opportunity for rest. It affects up to one-third of adults, with around 10% meeting the criteria for insomnia disorder. Emerging research increasingly points to insomnia as a significant, modifiable risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease. This narrative review synthesizes the latest evidence linking insomnia to heightened cardiometabolic risk, especially type 2 diabetes. Additionally, we discuss how sleep deprivation affects metabolic processes and cardiovascular health, highlighting the connection between insomnia and cardiometabolic disease. Despite its prevalence and clear impact on health, insomnia remains trivialized, underdiagnosed, and inadequately managed. Only a minority of individuals seek medical advice for sleep disturbances, highlighting an urgent need for improved screening and management, particularly for those with cardiometabolic conditions. In this review, we aim to provide health-care professionals with practical recommendations for identifying and managing insomnia, a condition that is often underrecognized, with the ultimate goal of reducing the burden of cardiometabolic diseases. Integrating sleep health into cardiometabolic care will represent a significant step forward in reducing the global burden of chronic cardiometabolic diseases.