Being examined on Monday tied to higher fasting insulin concentrations in men

Manic Mondays take on a new meaning with a recent study showing that being examined on this day often results in higher fasting insulin concentrations among men.

A team of investigators performed this cross-sectional study to examine differences in glucose metabolism and fasting triglyceride concentrations on Mondays compared to the rest of the week. They obtained data from the Maastricht Study, which included 6,067 participants without known diabetes and 1,568 previously diagnosed with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Confounder-adjusted linear regression analysis was used to investigate the associations of day of the week of examination with glucose and insulin responses to an oral glucose tolerance test and fasting triglyceride concentrations.

Fully adjusted models showed slightly higher mean concentrations of fasting glucose (1 percent, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0‒2), insulin (9 percent, 95 percent CI, 1‒18), and triglycerides (5 percent, 95 percent CI, 2‒8) on Mondays compared with the other weekdays.

In interaction analyses, the association between weekday and insulin was only evident in men (18 percent, 95 percent CI, 3‒35), but not in women (1 percent, 95 percent CI, ‒8 to 10).

However, the associations with glucose and triglycerides were only prominent for those with known T2D (glucose, 4 percent, 95 percent CI, 0‒7; triglycerides, 14 percent, 95 percent CI, 6‒23) compared with the background population (glucose, 0 percent, 95 percent CI, 0‒1; triglycerides, 3 percent, 95 percent CI, 0‒6).

“The timing of sleep, physical activity, and dietary intake show variation over the week, with different timings in the weekend compared to the weekdays, which may potentially lead to impaired glucose and lipid regulation on Mondays compared to other weekdays,” the authors said.