A bad night's sleep can often leave you feeling tired and irritable. And now, those who continually toss and turn are six times more likely to develop diabetes and heart disease. New research found that the symptoms of diabetes developed after just three days of disrupted sleep, according to Daily Mail.

The latest findings, published in Nature Genetics, could help to explain previous research that has shown night shift workers are prone to type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

The study involving almost 20,000 participants found those with any of four particular variants of the gene were at much greater risk - offering hope of personalised treatments for the condition.

Scientists say the faulty protein, known as MT2, may disrupt the link between our 24 hour, or circadian, rhythms and release of the hormone insulin - leading to abnormal control of blood sugar and, hence, type 2 diabetes.

Professor Philippe Froguel, of Imperial College London, said: 'Blood sugar control is one of the many processes regulated by the body’s biological clock. This study adds to our understanding of how the gene that carries the blueprint for a key component in the clock can influence people’s risk of diabetes.

“We found very rare variants of the MT2 gene that have a much larger effect than more common variants discovered before. Although each mutation is rare, they are common in the sense that everyone has a lot of very rare mutations in their DNA. Cataloguing these mutations will enable us to much more accurately assess a person’s risk of disease based on their genetics.'